Page 11 of Salt Between the Wolves

Eira stepped inside.

Snow still clung faintly to the hem of her dark cloak, half-melted from the walk across the yard, while loose strands of pale hair had escaped whatever braid she had tied earlier that morning. She paused only briefly after entering, her gaze moving once through the crowded hall before the awareness of the shift around her inevitably settled in.

Soren saw the exact moment it happened. Her shoulders tightened slightly. Not visibly enough for most wolves to notice, but enough for him.

A few conversations faded as she passed. Others continued too deliberately, voices growing overly casual in the way people behaved when trying not to acknowledge tension directly.

Eira kept walking anyway.

For a moment it looked as though she might turn back toward the doors.

Then Riven leaned sideways across the bench near the center tables and pushed an empty seat outward with his foot.

“You’re blocking the heat,” he said casually. “Sit down before the storm freezes the rest of us too.”

The comment drew a few quiet snorts from nearby wolves, small enough to loosen some of the tension gathering around the room.

Eira hesitated only briefly before crossing toward the open space beside him.

Riven resumed the conversation almost immediately once she sat down, not theatrically, not with the obvious effort of someone trying to rescue a situation. He simply continued speaking as though nothing unusual had happened at all.

“…told you the colt would bite someone eventually,” he was saying to one of the younger hunters nearby.

“He bit you.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“He liked me.”

A few quiet laughs followed.

Eira lowered her head slightly, hiding the faintest trace of amusement near the edge of her mouth before answering something too softly for Soren to hear from across the hall.

Riven grinned.

The tension around their section of the table loosened gradually after that, conversation rebuilding itself in cautious layers as the others began speaking again around them.

Painfully normal. That was what unsettled Soren most.

Riven did not watch Eira carefully before speaking to her. He did not hesitate over certain subjects or adjust his behavior around the bond the way everyone else had slowly begun doing without realizing it.

More dangerously, Eira responded to him differently now. Soren noticed it immediately.

The stiffness in her posture eased little by little as the conversation continued. Her attention stopped darting toward the room around her. Once, when Riven muttered something under his breath after one of the hunters complained about stable duty, she laughed quietly enough that the sound barely carried beyond the table.

Still, Soren heard it.

And the reaction beneath his ribs came hard enough this time that he nearly tightened his grip around the cup in his hand.

Across from him, Kael glanced up briefly.

Soren looked away before the observation could settle too clearly between them.

The bond itself felt strangely muted tonight, quieter around her than it had been in days. He could still sense it beneath the surface—steady, present, impossible to fully ignore—yet whatever strain usually sharpened the connection seemed diminished while she sat beside Riven.

Around him, she seemed able to breathe more easily.