Page 30 of The Alpha's Mail Order Bride

“Hello, Claire.” She recognized Syrra’s voice immediately, and turned with a smile to greet the senior lorekeeper, who had a bundle of candles in one hand. “I’m sorry things haven’t worked out.”

“Me too,” she said, wondering if the tears she could feel threatening would come before or after her memory had been cleared. “But it’s for the best.”

“If you’re sure, you’re sure,” Syrra said simply. Claire’s eyes strayed back to Anessi, who was still working. She had a stick of chalk in one of her slender hands and was drawing with it on the wooden floors. Claire could make out a vaguely humanoid shadow among the intricate, spiraling chalk markings. Would she be lying there while the ritual took place? There were half a dozen figures in lorekeepers’ robes, moving among the candles, and she felt the first shiver of worry run down her spine. And just as quickly, she felt Syrra’s warm hand on her upper arm. “It’s a little spooky in here, huh?”

That startled a laugh out of her, causing Anessi to glance up at them with a distracted little smile on her narrow features. “I guess.” She bit her lip, worried about asking the question that was pressing on her mind so close to Anessi—for all that she knew the island’s youngest lorekeeper didn’t speak English, it still felt rude.

“Syrra, is this—I mean, am I going to be okay? Is this safe?” She’d had a few nightmares about brain damage over the last few days while she’d been deliberating.

Syrra squeezed her arm. “Anessi’s one of the most talented young lorekeepers I’ve met,” she said softly. “And she’s done the last year of her apprenticeship under Raske, who’s fastidious to a fault. I’d trust this young woman with my own children, Claire.” Her smile was warm, a tinge of sadness in her eyes. “That being said, if you want to change your mind about leaving us, I’m sure nobody would mind blowing out the candles.”

That did it. Claire felt the first tear roll over her eyelid and she reached up to brush it away. “I wish I could just keepsomeof the memories,” she said, not for the first time.

“I’m afraid it’s one of those all or nothing deals, sweetness,” Syrra said softly. “You know you could leave without all this, right? You could take the memories with you. Renfrey trusts you—we all trust you to keep our secrets. Even Darion.”

The sound of his name made her wince, but she nodded. Renfrey’d had a long conversation with her when she’d been making this decision. She was grateful they trusted her, but at the end of the day, it was Darion she needed to forget. And she didn’t doubt that there’d be a little bit of relief, at least, that there wasn’t some random human out there carrying around their closely guarded secrets.

“Ah, well,” Syrra said softly. “It was worth a try. But I can see your mind’s made up.” She looked to Anessi, murmured an interrogatory sentence or two, and then the young woman sprang to her feet, nodding. She reached one slender hand out to touch Claire’s shoulder, gently and reverently, then gestured toward the ground. Claire caught her breath when she looked down at Anessi’s masterpiece. Intricate designs spread out from the middle of the hall, somehow reminding her of the roots of trees and tightly printed text all at the same time. In the softly flickering light of the candles that lit the room, the designs seemed three-dimensional, some trick of the shadows that made them seem to jut out of the floor and sway strangely back and forth. It was hypnotic even to look at them, and she wondered if this was a part of the ritual. It was just like going to sleep, that was what the lorekeepers had told her. A little lie down, a little chanting, and then a long, restful sleep.

“Thank you all, for everything,” Claire said to Syrra, feeling more tears rolling down her cheeks. “Please, tell everyone how much I loved my time here.”

It had been the best month of her life, she thought faintly as she lay down on the wooden floor, careful not to disturb the beautiful, intricate runes that Anessi had drawn. She only hoped they knew that…that they would understand why she had to do what she was doing. She had to trust that they would. They were shifters, after all.

They would know that she’d done what she had to do to face life without her soulmate.

Chapter 18 - Darion

For a long time after Claire had walked away from him for the last time, Darion sat on a rock in the forest, staring into the dark sky beyond the canopy of branches above him. The feeling was slowly returning to his arm as the venom worked its way free of his system, and he knew his wounds would heal within a day or two. But the pain in his chest…that, he suspected, wasn’t going to be so easy to deal with.

She hadn’t left. She’d stayed—despite what he’d said to her that night, despite his week-long disappearance without so much as a note left to explain where he was, she’d still stayed. Not only that, she’d kept training. She’d stood side by side with him, a wolf of Kurivon, and faced off against their ancient enemy. If Darion had been harboring any lingering conviction that Claire was just a tourist here, they were gone now. From where he was standing, she may as well be a member of his pack. She’d certainly been a better pack member over the last week than he had.

Too bad he’d blown it. His last chance…though he’d thought the last one had been his last chance, and the chance before that. She had more patience than he could believe, a greater capacity for forgiveness than he could ever deserve. He winced with pain, one hand going protectively to his side, though he knew the ache had nothing to do with an injury. She’d saved his life. That piece of information kept coming back to him, and he turned it around in his mind again and again, utterly at a loss for what to do with it. She’d saved his life…and had he even thanked her?

Suddenly, he was on his feet and walking, and while a few minutes ago his body had ached and twinged with every motion, he suddenly felt as light as air. What was injury? What was pain, when he had somewhere to be? Wounds would heal, bones would knit. But there would be no recovery if he let Claire go without at least once telling her how grateful he was to have met her, to have had her light shining on him for even these few precious weeks.

He almost knocked the door to his house open with the force of his entrance, realizing only when he stepped into the dark building that he hadn’t been here in over a week. The place didn’t look much different—a little messier, perhaps—but it certainly felt different. There was a coldness to it, an empty, hollow feeling that set a horrible suspicion off in the back of his mind like an alarm. It was familiar, this feeling. This was the feeling of a house that only he lived in. It hadn’t been long at all since he’d last felt that, but he didn’t care for it one bit.

He bolted upstairs to confirm his suspicions, but he needn’t have bothered—before the door to her room had even swung open, he knew he’d find it empty. Bed neatly stripped, bedding no doubt bundled up in the hamper, her laptop gone from its usual place by the window, every last trace of her belongings gone. With a lump in his throat, he headed downstairs, searching vainly as he went for a note, knowing in his heart that she wouldn’t have left one. What did she have left to say, after all? She’d been honest with him every day; she hadn’t left anything unsaid. If anyone ought to have been writing notes, it was him.

There was something terribly wrong, that much was becoming clear to him. He headed straight for the docks, hopeful of seeing one of the little boats ferrying her out to Reeve’s yacht. But when he reached the shore, the boats were all secured by the jetty, and the distant shape of Reeve’s ship on the water was completely dark, no light in any of the windows. She wasn’t there. That should have brought him relief—it meant she was still on the island somewhere. But his wolf was howling in his chest, more anxious than it had ever been, the very magic in his blood tingling and itching with fear. Every wolf had a unique relationship with their wild core, the intuitive center of their being. Darion had always relied on his wolf for strength, for resilience, for control. He’d never felt anything like the dread that was seething in them both right now. Even facing down demons didn’t frighten him this much.

What could be a worse threat than his own death?

Darion started running. What else could he do? He had no idea where he was going, what he was doing. All he knew was that his wolf was terrified he’d be too late. He remembered what Claire had said about how she’d found him, about feeling a powerful hunch that had brought her to where those demons had cornered him, and for a dizzy moment wondered if this was the same thing. But it couldn’t be. Claire was a human—she had no wolf to warn her. So what, exactly, had guided her to him when he needed her? What intuition in her had saved his life?

With her bright face in his mind and his feet thudding hard against the sand, Darion found himself running toward a large building in the distance, silhouetted against the sky. Disoriented, he blinked around him, trying to place it—the old library? No. Too many other buildings around. He frowned at the strange, flickering glow of warm light through the windows. Every other building he’d passed had been closed up for the night, every light switched off to avoid attracting any unwanted attention from curious demons. Who was still awake in the community center?

He slowed to a halt outside the doors, the urge to run leaving him as quickly as it had arrived. Did that mean he was where he needed to be? Was Claire inside? As if in answer to his question, the door clicked open, but the hope that had risen into his throat was dashed at once. A figure in the long white robes of a lorekeeper turned a familiar face to him. Syrra, the island’s senior lorekeeper, and one of his oldest friends here. Why did she look so sad?

“Oh, Darion,” she said heavily, her voice full of a grief he didn’t understand. “I think you’re too late, my friend.”

“Too late for what?” His voice was hoarse, and he was still working on catching his breath, but all he cared about was the deepening frown on Syrra’s face.

“You don’t know?” She glanced behind her at the door, at the flickering light through the windows. “Then what made you come here?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, not caring if it made him sound crazy. “What do you mean, I’m too late?”

“The ritual’s over,” she said softly. Darion wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, but he held himself back, every muscle in his body going tense. “Claire’s asleep now. She’ll be asleep for a while, and when she wakes…”

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