Page 3 of In Her Own Rite

I swallow. “Tell me again how it’ll go.”

“You know how it is,piu,” she says.Loved one. “You can ask me a hundred times, but it’s not going to prepare him, or you, any better.”

“I don’t care. It’ll help me worry less. Tell me, please.”

Saga sighs and takes a sip from her mug. “Thereijna, the wise woman, will know on the morning of the rite that it’s time. That’s me now, but for my rite, that was still your grandmother.”

“And how do you know?”

“The ancestors tell you. I’ll feel it in my bones.” She raises her mug to me. “You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

I shake my head. “No, I’m not anywhere near that yet.”

“All healers are sensitive to it. I started to get the feeling when I was about where you are in your training. It wouldn’t surprise me if you do, too.”

“Maybe.” I take a sip of my coffee. “So you know it’s the day. And then what?”

“I tell Kieran and the elders. He gets ready with his training pack, and you and I prepare thekattaka. That evening, a few hours after the sun sets, we do the ceremony. Then he climbs up to the cliffs alone, so it’s just him and the lights in the ring.”

“And then he’ll fight,” I say quietly.

“And then he’ll fight.”

I swallow. The rite is styled after the founding myth of the Fakari people. The story goes that a hero named Tayyakuk sailed the seas for ten years, searching for a place to call home. He found the islands, but the moon goddess Móra had fallen in love with him and wanted him to stay on the seas so they could be together. She brought storms and disaster, trying to keep him away from our shores. After three nights, he finally reached them and climbed to the cliffs, where he challenged Móra to a battle for the right to call the islands home.

They say she took the form of a wolf and they fought through the night. Finally, as the sun began to rise over the horizon, Móra admitted defeat. And because Tayyakuk won, she gifted him the power of the wolf, and promised to protect the islands as long as his descendants lived here.

Our ancestors built the ring at the edge of the cliff where they fought. Now anyone who wants to assume a parent’s seat on pack council needs to climb to the ring and fight for the right to do so, the same way Tayyakuk did. The ancestors take the shape of your greatest fear to make you prove your worth. You either beat whatever form they take, or you outlast them until sunrise.

If you win, you become an elder.

If you lose, the sea awaits below. But that hasn’t happened in years.

I take another sip of my coffee, thinking it over. I used to believe it was all myths and legends.Kattakais an herbal drink that makes you hallucinate; it’s basically like a bad trip. But that doesn’t explain why some people return from the ring covered in cuts and bruises. That doesn’t explain why some people don’t come back at all, or some—like Seb—carry an injury for the rest of their lives. It can'tallbe in your head.

“What form did the ancestors take for you?” I ask quietly. I can’t meet Saga’s eyes as I ask this, and look pointedly at my coffee. Her voice comes like a cold wind.

“Emerson. You know I can’t tell you that. Come now, finish your coffee, and then we’ll get going on our morning rounds. Linnea will be waiting.” She stands and heads for the stairs to get dressed.

I stay at the table to finish my coffee. As I do, I think of Kieran in that ring. Fighting his demons alone in a way he makes sure I never have to.

2

KIERAN

Iwake up hard as a rock, with Emerson sitting on the edge of the bed next to me.

I can smell the scent of her arousal in the air, rich and heady. She gets up to change, moving quietly so she doesn’t wake me. She’s trying to distract herself, I can tell.

Takkagaayu.I don’t know if I can handle having her near me in that state.

I pretend to stay asleep as she slips off the old T-shirt she was sleeping in and steps into a clean pair of scrubs. I keep my eyes closed, willing myself not to take a peek at her as she changes. She’s been trying to hide it from me—keeping her distance during the day, and rubbing herself with creams and lotions to mask the scent—but I can tell her heat is coming up and it’s already sending me out of my mind.

She ties her hair back and walks back to the bed to grab something from the table beside me. As the scent of her comes nearer, I can feel my inner wolf panting, and almost need to suppress a low groan. It’s hard enough to stay away from her therestof the time. Last year when she went into heat, I took a trip to visit my dad on the north island just to keep my distance without going feral for her. This is around this time I usually need to get out of here to preserve my sanity—but since I’ve started my training, I probably shouldn’t leave the island until I complete the rite. And she can’t take a well-timed vacation until then either, because she’s doing mykattakaceremony. So now my ancestors and her hormones are playing some fucked-up game of chicken and I’m losing my goddamn mind.

Finally, Em slips out of the room to go downstairs. As soon as the door closes behind her, I roll onto my back and look at the ceiling, willing my body to calm down. I try to think about anything else—new orders at work, the gym, my rite coming up—but it’s not about my thoughts so much as the scent of her, and the warmth of the sheets she’s left behind.

I grip myself to relieve some of the pressure, and resist the urge to stroke myself. Iwill notthink about her like that. I never do. At the same time, it feels wrong to think about anyone else. So, instead, I don’t get off, and I work out all my aggression in the gym. If Emerson had any idea thatshe’sthe reason I work out three hours a day, she’d never look me in the eye again.

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