"What are you talking about?" My heart stutters. Carry something? My hand instinctively moves to my abdomen. Is she implying—no, that's impossible. We never... But alien biology? My mind races through the implications.
Her eyes pierce through me. "He hasn't explained the connection? What you are to each other?"
I shake my head, remembering the electric feeling whenever we touched, the inexplicable trust despite everything. The warm buzz in my body the closer he was to me.
A buzz that is currently very quiet.
The now realized silence is deafening.
Like losing radio contact in hostile territory. That constant hum of energy I'd felt around Fen—something I hadn't even realized had become my new normal—is barely perceptible now.
Also… Fen loves me? We barely know each other. But even as I think it, I remember his eyes when he carried me, the desperation in his voice. The way something in me recognized him from the first moment. Like finding a piece I didn't know was missing.
And now that connection is fading. Which means either he's too far away... or something worse.
"You are his mate, Astrid. His soul's other half." She leans forward. "Centuries ago, my grandson's soul was shattered. The fragment found its way to you, and embedded itself within your spirit. It waited centuries for the right soul. You've carried a piece of him your entire life."
I nearly choke on the bread. "That's not possible."
But even as I deny it, I she’s speaking the truth. How I couldn't bring myself to shoot him in the forest, even when I had the shot. How I trusted him instinctively despite years of GUIDE training warning me never to trust anything non-human.
"Yet here you are." She offers a sad smile. "You died in front of him. He heard your heart stop. The wolf took control, consumed by grief. He's been running wild since then. None of my men have been able to find him. Not even Eir has been able to pick up a trace."
She rises, moving to the railing. "He thinks you're dead. He doesn't know Eir and I saved you. Doesn't know his grandfather Odin brought your soul back from Valhalla."
I set down the bread, suddenly less hungry. "How long have I been unconscious?"
"Six days," she says.
Six days. Fen has been running wild for six days, thinking I'm dead. Thinking he lost me.
"Where is he now?" I demand, bolting to my feet. The urgency surprises even me. I need to find him. Need to let him know I'm alive. I join her at the railing, scanning the horizon as if I could spot him through sheer force of will.
"I need to find him. Now." Not a request. A statement of fact, as inevitable as gravity.
She gestures toward the distant forests and mountains beyond the city limits. "Somewhere in the wilderness beyond the city." She turns to me, her expression serious. "I need you to bring my grandson back to me. You're his mate. You're the only one who might have a chance of reaching him, of bringing him back from his wolf. He needs you. He needs to bond with you."
"Bond?"
"He needs to bite you, mark you as his." Her eyes search mine. "Without it, he will remain lost to us, consumed by grief, trapped in his beast."
I stare at her, struggling to process what she's saying. Bite me? Mark me? Fen never mentioned anything about this—not one word about bonds or mates or marking. This sounds like something out of one of those old fantasy romance novels, not reality.
"I barely know him," I say, though the words sound hollow even to me. The truth is, I feel like I know him on a deep level I can't explain. But being bitten by him? Being marked? That's something else entirely.
"Don't you?" She gives me a knowing look. "Haven't you felt it from the first moment? The recognition? The sense that you could trust him?"
The man saved my life. Carried me through dimensions. Is suffering because of me. I owe him this much—to at least try to find him. To let him know I'm alive.
"Even if what you're saying is true," I say carefully, "How would I find him?" I wave my hand toward the mountains. “He could be anywhere.”
"Your wolf will know." She puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes.
My wolf? I swallow and take a step away from her. “I don’t have a wolf.”
“You do now.” She moves toward the doorway. "Rest. Eat. Consider what I've told you. I'll return later to answer your questions."
I watch her leave, then turn back to the view of this impossible place. My mind races. A wolf…
