Page 45 of Moonmarked

For a moment there, I was calm. Quiet. My mind blank. No fear and no anxiety. No memory of what had happened the last time I was awake.

Then I heard the footsteps.

Somehow, when I blinked, I was standing. Somehow, in the second it took my heart to skip a beat, I was on my feet next to the bed, wearing a pale pink nightgown that most definitely didn’t belong to me. No pain in my body, and I was ready to fucking run for another full day if I had to.

Because I remembered.

The sorcerers and those men who’d shifted into wolves and Maera and those howls and?—

“Raja.”

The name slipped from my lips when she stopped by the threshold, unsurprised to find me awake and standing. Her cold dark eyes took me in slowly, scrolling down my body like I was a ticking bomb she expected to go off any second.

She hadn’t changed a bit. Her dress was still black, made mostly out of soft leather, and her hair was tied behind her head in a tight bun, and her pointy ears were perfectly visible. Just as striking as the last time I saw her—and shehatedme with the same strength, if the look in her eyes was anything to go by.

“Aren’t you full of surprises,” she said passively, and she most definitely did not expect a reply, only came in and dropped what she was holding on the edge of the bed—clothes. The same clothes I’d had on when I came here. The velvet pants and jacket I’d stolen from the queen’s palace, except they looked clean now. And dry.

Meanwhile, I wasn’t. My hair was full of dirt and my skin was brown in most places, too. I’d even stained the sheets I’d been lying on a little.

It doesn’t matter,I told myself. None of this mattered.

“Rune.” My voice was stronger now and it filled the room. “I need you to send a message to Rune with your shadows, Raja.Please.”

She flinched at my pleading—actually flinched before she said, “I already have.”

My God, those words.

They put the entire world in the palms of my hands. The tears came, hard and fast and all at once. My eyes closed and two slipped down my cheeks, and now I was shaking, like I suddenly had no more strength left in me. Like my body suddenlyremembered that I hadn’t eaten in a long time, that I’d gone througha lot.

“I’d ask youhow dareyou show up at my door the way you did, but I have a sense you won’t mind. After stealing from me—I doubt you have any scruples in you, mortal.”

It didn’t surprise me in the least. “I didn’t steal from you. Rune took your boots so I could get through the tunnel easier.”

She arched a brow but didn’t say whether she believed me or not.

Andthatdidn’t matter, either.

“I didn’t come to stay, Raja. I only wanted to send a message to Rune so he knew where I was. I’ll be leaving right away, but I will stay close to wait until he comes.”

The woman would kill me right where I stood if eyes had that kind of power. “You’re certain that he will.” Again—not a question, just a statement.

“I am.” I stepped forward, begged my legs not to let go of me. I needed to get those clothes, put them on, and then get out of this house asap.

“And how exactly do you plan to explainthisto him—or to anyone at all?” Slowly, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and walked deeper into the room, to the other side, as if she was deliberately trying to keep as much distance between us as possible. “You come to me before dawn, brimming with moon magic, with an alpha wolf whothreatensme in my own home.”

Fuck.“No, no—she wasn’t threatening you. They were just howling. They?—”

“Don’t try to make a fool out of me, mortal.” She said that word like it was the most disgusting, vile thing she could imagine—and believe it or not, I couldn’t have cared less. Right now, my life was far too complicated to bebothered by that name or to take offense at anything said by anyone I met on this fucking continent at all.

“I’m not trying to do anything. It was just a howl,” I said through gritted teeth, hands pulled up in fists as warmth spread all over me, starting from my chest.

Not going to lie, it scared me a little because it was unexpected. I knew what it was. I knew what came with it—the light in my hands. The energy, themagicthat made things float on air—orthrewthem off me like it had done those men before they shifted into wolves.

And it had nevercome at me so suddenly before, so fast, at just a hint of anger.

“It wasa threat,” Raja insisted, speaking slowly now. “They threatened to come back for me if I harmed you. They threatened me.”

Well, damn, Maera…

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