Maeruth had not planned to leave her root shelter that night.
She rarely left unless the war-pride was moving again, or unless a wound was so bad that the healer females could not handle it without her.
Everyone knew that.
Maeruth was Rauvan’s mother, but she was also one of the few healers in the entire war-pride, so she was guarded almost as carefully as the cubs during a raid.
But tonight, she could not stay still.
Something had changed in the air.
It was faint at first.
So faint that another healer might have missed it.
But Maeruth was not another healer.
She had lived through more than four hundred sun-cycles, and her blood had listened to death, birth, poison, broken bones, and hidden power long before Rauvan was born.
So when the strange female’s blood stirred inside Rauvan’s shelter, Maeruth felt it.
Not clearly.
But enough.
She opened her eyes inside her deep root shelter, and for a moment, the dry herbs hanging above her head swayed even though no wind had entered.
The air smelled of smoke, bone, old rain, and bitter medicine.
A small shell bowl of dark paste sat near her knee.
A bone needle rested beside it.
Her white hair fell around her shoulders, and her pale eyes looked toward the shelter entrance.
One of the young guards outside lowered his head quickly when she stepped out.
“Maeruth?”
She did not answer him.
She walked past him, and the guard immediately stiffened because Maeruth did not walk out for nothing.
The night resting ground was quiet, but not truly asleep.
Beast people never slept like harmless creatures.
Some were in beast form on tree branches, tails hanging low.
Some slept near the roots in groups.
Some males kept watch with their noses turned to the wind.
Cubs were tucked between females, and warriors slept in a ring around them.
Maeruth passed through all of it.
Every beast who noticed her lowered their gaze.
Rauvan was standing near his temporary shelter when she reached it.
He turned before she made a sound.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“Mother.”
Maeruth looked at him once, then looked past him into the shelter.
“Move.”
Rauvan did not move at once.
That alone made her eyes sharpen.
He had blocked beasts from her before.
Enemies, careless males, even injured warriors who thought their pain gave them the right to rush at a healer.
But he had never blocked her from a patient.
Maeruth’s lips curved slightly.
“Already?”
Rauvan’s expression did not change.
“She is asleep.”
“I know.”
“Her wounds are closed enough.
She does not need you tonight.”
Maeruth looked at him as if he had said something very stupid.
“Then why are you standing outside her shelter like a male guarding meat from flies?”
His jaw tightened.
Maeruth walked past him.
This time, Rauvan let her.
Inside, Odette lay on the hide, breathing weakly.
Most of the mud had been cleaned from her throat, chest, arms, and face, but her hair was still tangled with leaves and dried blood.
Even asleep, she looked restless.
Her brows were drawn together, and her fingers twitched against the hide as if she still expected someone to grab her.
Maeruth stopped.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Rauvan noticed immediately.
His hand shot out and caught her elbow before she swayed, and his frown deepened.
“What is it?”
Maeruth did not answer.
For a moment, she only stared at Odette’s face.
Not the wounds.
Not the dried blood.
Her face.
The shape of her eyes.
The proud line of her mouth.
The delicate sharpness beneath the bruises.
The faint red ring around her amber eyes, even though they were closed now.
Maeruth’s fingers tightened once.
Too familiar.
Far too familiar.
Rauvan looked from his mother to Odette, and his voice dropped.
“You know something.”
Maeruth pulled her arm away and straightened.
“I know many things.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one I am giving while you stand there looking ready to bite me.”
Rauvan’s eyes cooled.
Maeruth ignored it and knelt beside Odette.
She placed two fingers near the wound on Odette’s neck.
Then she touched her wrist, her ribs, her ankle, and the space below her collarbone.
Odette’s body was healing faster than it should.
Not fully.
Not cleanly.
But enough that Maeruth’s eyes became darker with thought.
“There is blood in her,” Maeruth said quietly.
Rauvan did not move.
“What kind?”
“I do not know yet.”
His expression sharpened.
“You do not know?”
Maeruth looked up at him.
“Do you think old blood comes wearing a name around its throat?
It hides.
It changes.
It sleeps.
Sometimes even the beast carrying it does not know what it is until something tears it open.”
Rauvan looked down at Odette.
Odette shifted in her sleep and made a small pained sound.
It was not much, but Rauvan’s eyes moved to her mouth before he could stop himself.
Maeruth saw it.
Of course she saw it.
She was his mother.
“How do you feel when you are near her?” Maeruth asked.
Rauvan’s gaze snapped back to her.
“Nothing.”
Maeruth did not blink.
“I asked how you feel.”
“I answered.”
“No, you lied.”
Rauvan’s jaw tightened again.
“Mother.”
“I am your mother.”
“I know.”
“Then do not lie to my face like a cub with stolen marrow on his mouth.”
For one dangerous moment, the shelter became too quiet.
Outside, a night insect clicked near the roots.
Somewhere farther away, a beast snorted in sleep.
Odette breathed softly on the hide between them, unaware that the two most dangerous people in the shelter were now staring at each other over her body.
Rauvan finally looked away first.
Maeruth’s lips twitched.
So it was true.
He felt something.
He had never felt anything before.
Not for Vasha.
Not for hunter females.
Not for females sent by other groups.
Not for pretty ones, soft ones, proud ones, or strong ones.
Rauvan could look at a beautiful female and see only whether she could run, fight, birth, heal, or survive.
His blood had never reacted.
Maeruth had waited for this for so long that she had almost stopped waiting.
Direflow males were not like ordinary males.
Not all of them were bound to fated mates, but many were.
When they were, their bodies became cruel in a different way.
They could not desire freely.
They could not bond as they liked.
They could not choose a female simply because she was beautiful or useful.
If they never met the one their blood answered, they remained empty.
Rauvan had lived empty for many sun-cycles.
And now this hollow female had made him lie.
Maeruth reached into the pouch at her waist.
Rauvan saw the movement at once.
“What is that?”
Maeruth pulled out a small dark seed wrapped in softened leaf.
It was black on the outside, but when she cracked it between her nails, red sap bled out slowly.
“A healer’s thing.”
“That is not an answer.”
Maeruth looked at him.
“You did not answer me either.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Do not feed her something unknown.”
Maeruth’s face became very still.
“Unknown?” she repeated softly.
“To you, perhaps.”
Rauvan said nothing.
Maeruth’s expression changed.
It was small, but sharp.
“Do you not trust me because of this female?”
That hit him in a place he did not want to admit existed.
“I did not say that.”
“You did not need to.”
Rauvan’s hands curled once at his sides.
Maeruth leaned closer to Odette, but she kept watching him from the corner of her eye.
“Strange.
You feel nothing, yet your body questions what I give her.
You feel nothing, yet you stand between her and the night.
You feel nothing, yet you carried her with your own hands.”
“I carried her because she fell.”
“Many beasts fall.”
“She is under my fang.”
“And why did you put her there?”
Rauvan did not answer.
Maeruth’s mouth curved.
Then she squeezed the red sap onto Odette’s tongue.
Odette swallowed weakly in her sleep.
Rauvan stepped closer before he could stop himself.
“What did you give her?”
Maeruth stood and wiped her fingers on a strip of leaf.
“Something to loosen what is locked and hide what should not be smelled by the wrong nose.”
“What else?”
Maeruth turned toward the entrance.
“Mother.”
She paused, but did not look back.
“What else?”
Maeruth’s voice became calm.
“When she wakes, we will know more.”
Then she left.
Rauvan stood there for a long moment, staring at Odette.
Something was wrong.
No, not wrong.
Different.
The air around Odette had changed.
Her scent had been faint before, hidden under mud and wounds, but now something warm had begun to move beneath her skin.
It was still trapped, still faint, but it pulled at him harder than before.
Rauvan suddenly felt too hot.
He felt his body reacting to her even more than ever.
He had to leave the shelter before the feeling got worse and caused him to loose control.
He walked straight through the sleeping ground, past the guards, past the roots, past a group of wolf males who lowered their heads when he passed.
He did not stop until he reached the nearest water hollow, a dark pool fed by a cold spring between stones.
He untied the hide at his waist and stepped into the water.
The cold hit his skin, but it did not calm him.
His body still burned.
His chest felt tight.
His blood felt awake.
The Blood Prowl Direflow inside him moved restlessly, like a beast pacing behind ribs.
Rauvan lowered himself deeper into the water until it reached his chest, then dipped his head back and closed his eyes.
Saving Odette might have been a mistake.
Not because she would slow the road.
Not because she might bring enemies.
Because if this female could affect him like this, then she was already a weakness.
And Rauvan did not have weaknesses.
He had killed them, buried them, or starved them long ago.
So why did he still remember the way her eyes looked when she bared her teeth at him?
Back in another part of the resting ground, Vasha stepped into her father’s shelter.
Her father was named Tharnak.
He was a striped cat male with gray at the sides of his black hair, deep claw scars across one cheek, and the kind of calm face that made others forget he had once ripped a rival’s throat out in front of an entire hunting ring.
He was one of the high claw-leaders of the war-pride, not above Rauvan, never above Rauvan, but powerful enough that many listened when he spoke.
His hunters controlled several side paths during migration, and that gave him influence.
Vasha had always known that was one reason she could stand so close to Rauvan.
Her father’s current shelter was built under bent roots, with thick hides over the sides to hide it from night wind.
When Vasha entered, she thought she heard a voice.
She stopped.
Tharnak was alone.
He sat near a small fire pit with one knee raised and one arm resting on it.
The glow from the coals made his eyes look darker than usual.
“Who were you speaking to?” Vasha asked.
“No one.”
“I heard something.”
“Then your ears are tired.”
Vasha frowned.
Tharnak looked at her neck.
“Karesh hit you.”
Her face tightened.
“You heard.”
“I heard many things tonight.”
Vasha stepped closer, and her control started breaking again.
“Rauvan carried her.”
“I heard that too.”
“He took her into his shelter.”
“Yes.”
“He washed her.”
Tharnak’s eyes sharpened, but he did not react the way she wanted.
He did not rage.
He did not promise to remove Odette.
He only watched his daughter until Vasha wanted to scream.
“Say something,” she snapped.
“Do nothing.”
Vasha stared at him.
“What?”
Tharnak’s voice stayed low.
“Do nothing.”
“She is a hollow female.
She came from mud and baboon blood.
She should not even be breathing near him.”
“And yet she is.”
“That is why something must be done.”
“No.” Tharnak leaned forward.
“That is why you will stay your claws.”
Vasha’s lips parted in disbelief.
Tharnak knew his daughter.
He knew the way she smiled before hurting other females.
He knew about the ones who had looked at Rauvan too long and later ended up mauled, lost, bitten by forest beasts, or missing from the sleeping ring.
He had never stopped her before because those females had not mattered.
This one might.
That was why he was afraid.
Not afraid like a weak male.
Afraid like a hunter who had found a track too large to name.
“Listen carefully,” Tharnak said.
“Rauvan does not act without reason.
If he carried her, there is something under the mud.
If he paused the road for her, there is something in her blood.
If you touch her too soon, he will not see jealousy.
He will see disobedience.”
Vasha’s claws slid out.
“She is stealing what belongs to me.”
Tharnak’s eyes turned cold.
“Rauvan does not belong to you.”
The words struck hard.
Vasha’s face changed.
Tharnak sighed and softened his voice just enough to keep her from exploding.
“But he could.
That is what you want, is it not?
If you become his mate, my blood stands beside his.
My hunters rise.
Our line becomes harder to push aside.
Do you think I have spent seasons letting you circle him because I enjoy watching you chase air?”
Vasha swallowed.
“Then do not ruin it with one stupid kill,” Tharnak said.
“Watch the hollow female.
Learn why Maeruth came out tonight.
Learn why Rauvan stopped the road.
Then we decide whether she should die.”
Vasha breathed hard through her nose.
“And if he wants her?” she asked.
Tharnak’s face became unreadable.
“Then we make sure he regrets it.”