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He pulls back just enough to study me with his intense gaze. His eyes drop to my mouth and warmth pools low in my belly as he leans so close, I can almost taste the soft mint of his breath. “Luna, I—”
“Malak!” I recognize his brother—Fredrik’s—voice immediately. “Come on! Let’s go to the bonfire.”
I take a small step back, trying to hide my disappointment at the interruption.
Fredrik looks up at us from the garden below and waves at me. “Hi, Luna! Are you going to join in the festivities?”
Before I can answer, Malak yells back. “Go on, Fredrik. I’ll find you later.”
“Fine.” Fredrik rolls his eyes. “But if you do not hurry, all the good ones will be spoken for,” he calls over his shoulder as he leaves.
Dread twists inside me because I know he’s referring to the Wolf-Shifter women who have come of age this year, just as they have. Fredrik is only a few minutes older than Malak, and they turned nineteen a few months ago.
Malak turns back to me. “Do you want to go?”
The last thing I want is to watch him dancing with other women. Besides, my father already forbade me to go to the bonfire. “Father will not allow me to go.”
“What about the chase tomorrow?” he asks. “Will you be there?”
“I’m human, Mal.” I frown. “The chase is for Wolf-Shifters.”
“Humans participate sometimes,” he counters. “They—”
“I cannot,” I tell him. “If Father will not let me go to the bonfire, he certainly would never let me participate in the chase.”
His expression falls. “How will you find a mate then?”
My heart clenches. The purpose of the chase is to find a mate, which means that Malak will find someone tomorrow. Someone that isn’t me…
I lower my gaze. “Like most human women in my position, I suppose.” My Father is the Ambassador from Avalor, and we have lived in the kingdom of Winterhold since I was ten. My family is among the lesser nobility, but because of his prestigious position and wealth, he has already had many requests for my hand. “My parents will arrange for my betrothal to whomever they deem most suitable.”
Malak’s eyes flash with concern. “Do you want to be bound to a stranger?”
“Not particularly,” I say, unable to hide the bitter edge to my tone. “But it is how these things are done.”
“Do you truly not have a choice?” he asks.
“If I were not nobility, I would be free to choose whomever I wanted, but with titles come expectations and responsibilities.” I repeat my mother’s exact words to him. “It is how it is done.”
“That is barbaric,” he exclaims.
I frown. “Is your brother not held to the same?”
He shakes his head.
“But Fredrik is the eldest. He will be King of Winterhold someday.”
“It is still his choice who he takes as a mate,” Malak says. “Just as it is mine. That is why we have been looking forward to the harvest moon.” His lips curl up in a faint smile. “To participate in the chase.”
I only have a vague idea of what happens during this event, and although I am loath to think of him with another, I have to know. “How do you choose someone in the chase?”
“Some go by instinct alone, their inner wolf guiding them.” He shrugs. “But others go into the chase already having decided upon who they want, and the chase is merely a formality… a rite of passage in the choosing.”
Malak is a prince of Winterhold and, as such, he has no shortage of female admirers. I wonder if any have caught his attention.
“And once you choose that person?” I ask. “What then?”
His eyes snap to mine, his gaze intense. “Are you asking me the details of the claiming?”
