Let the Elders Smell Whose Scent Is on You

Aurora's POV

Kaelen's mouth was a fire, and it burned from my throat all the way down to my belly.

He lifted his head. Moonlight leaked through the shutter crack and lit those dark wolf eyes until they were something lethal to look at. He smiled. The pad of his thumb drew across my soaked entrance — and then only ground there, again and again, without going in.

"Aurora. Did you think passing the bloodline review was the end of it?" He bent lower, tongue tracing my collarbone, where he had left old bite marks more than once. "The Luna's coronation is not so simple. You still have to enter the trial."

My body locked up.

"The trial?" I fought to keep my voice level. The last syllable still shook.

"On the night of the full moon, after the Wolf King's blood baptism, as Luna you undergo the Moon Goddess's trial."

His fingers finally pushed in, moving slow, in and out, every inch of it like being measured.

"The Moon Goddess is absolutely neutral. In front of Her you have no secrets. Your deepest fears will tear at you without stopping, force you into your true form, and see whose mark you carry."

He paused, lowered his head, took my nipple between his teeth and worried at it gently. My head snapped back and I nearly cried out.

"So, Aurora." His voice was at the shell of my ear, and it sent a shudder through me. "You carry my old mark. We are the fated mates. Are you certain the Moon Goddess will let you walk out of it alive once She finds you were unfaithful — that She won't punish you?"

Then he drove in, all the way, to the root.

"Ah—" I couldn't hold it any longer. I cried out — and then bit down hard on my own lip, and tears fell in fat drops onto the pillow.

Kaelen breathed out low, satisfied. He moved deep and hard, every stroke landing where I was most defenseless.

He gripped my waist and made me look at him. "Tell me you still want me. Tell me you can't leave me."

He took me apart, and Cedric's face came up clear in my head anyway. Today, in the woods, holding me so gently, saying he loved me with that certainty.

He knew nothing. Suspected nothing. He had handed me his whole heart.

I hated Kaelen. Hated that he had taught my body every one of its weak points. Hated that he was using them now to make me admit I couldn't leave him.

But what I hated more was this: my body did remember him.

"You—" Gasping, as Kaelen drove in deep again, I gathered everything I had and raised my hand, nails biting into the skin of his back. "In your dreams."

Kaelen braced above me. Those wolf eyes, dim gold, narrowed.

I laughed coldly. "I— the one I want is Cedric."

His voice went cold. "Say that again."

"I said," I said — even with my body under him, even with him still inside me — "I want to be Cedric's mate. Whatever you threaten me with, I will only ever be his mate. Even if he isn't my true mate."

The next second Kaelen had my jaw in his hand. He drove his hips down and hit bottom, then took me in long strokes, each one to the deepest point.

He hit me until I nearly blacked out. Then he bent and set his teeth into my shoulder, pierced the skin, and went on long enough that I lost count — and when I came he slammed in one last time and emptied everything hot into the deepest part of me.

I made a muffled sound. Tears and sweat ran together on my face.

He lay over me, breathing hard, and took a long while before he pulled out. What he had left in me ran down my thigh.

"Fine." His voice was cold as quenched steel. "Play tough. Then take what I've given you to the bloodline review. Let the elders smell whose scent is on you."

I shuddered and sat up sharply.

He was already dressing, his back to me, the marks my nails had clawed into his shoulder blades still there. He turned his head; moonlight cut half his face out of the dark, and that smile at the corner of his mouth was cold and wrong.

"Scared? Beg me, and I'll help you."

I bit down on my teeth, grabbed my clothes, dragged them on any way I could, and stumbled out of his room.

Back in my own room, I collapsed against the door. My body kept clenching in waves, and the pleasure had left my legs too weak to hold me. I slid to the floor and felt, plainly, that what he had left inside me was still running out.

I rushed into the privy and washed frantically, pushing my fingers in to dig it out, trying to get every trace of him out of me.

I barely slept that night.

When I came downstairs, Cedric was already waiting at the stone table. He stood the moment he saw me, his eyes going to my face, and his brow knotted.

"Aurora, you look terrible." He put his hand to my forehead, his palm warm. "Didn't sleep well?"

"I'm not used to the bed." I pulled at the corner of my mouth, trying to smile, and couldn't.

He didn't believe me, of course.

"We can't be careless today, not before the bloodline review." He turned to the servants. "Send for the healer."

My heart stopped dead for a beat.

"There's no need, I really am just—"

"Aurora." Cedric took my hand. "You look like something drained the strength right out of you. Let me take care of you. All right?"

He said it as gently as if he were soothing a wounded cub.

But the more he treasured me, the less easy I felt.

The healer came quickly.

"Mm…" The healer's brow drew tighter and tighter. "There's something…"

I was wound tight with fear.

The healer leaned closer and sniffed, nostrils flaring. Every hair on my body stood up. I'd washed so many times that morning, and taken the scent-blocker on top of it — but if this one was good enough…

"Something strange."

The healer opened their eyes and looked at Cedric. "It's as though her body is rejecting something. As though — as though it's—"

"Checking what?"

A lazy voice came from the doorway.

I went rigid all over.

Kaelen leaned against the door frame, golden hair loose over his shoulders. His wolf eyes swept across the healer and came to rest on me, and the corner of his mouth tipped up.

"Rosalind sent me to ask whether the menu for today's assembly feast has been settled." He strolled in bold as anything, sat down at the table, picked up a berry and tossed it into his mouth.

Cedric said, "Kaelen, you've been back two days and I still haven't asked. Dark Moon Pack has no end of affairs to manage. You can really leave it?"

Kaelen chewed the berry and lounged back against his chair. "No, I can't. That's why I came back."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what I said."

Kaelen raised his eyes. "Don't worry. A few days, nothing more — nothing's going to fall apart. The moment the Luna's coronation is over, I'll go straight back."

And in the gap between their words, I felt it.

As Kaelen talked, his fingers tapped idly at the tabletop, and in time with that rhythm a warm, dense heat came flooding into my belly.

Could it be — could it be that he was going to—