Riven
The door clicked shut behind him and the cabin exhaled.
The air outside was a slap of cold. Riven drew it deep into his lungs and held it there, letting the night burn the human scent from his throat.
Her scent.
He had not expected it to cling.
Vanilla, warm and faint beneath the copper tang of blood. Soft in a way that made no sense out here, where everything smelled like frost and pine and old stone.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, jaw tight, and forced himself to look away from the window. Lantern light glowed faintly behind the glass. Somewhere inside, the human lay unconscious on his bed, a wound in her leg and another in the neat order of his life.
He had never wanted a mate.
The idea had always felt like a chain. One more shackle on a life already bound by duty and blood.
When he took the title of Alpha three years ago, after tearing it from a leader who had nearly gotten half their pack killed, he had sworn privately that his life belonged to the Wildmane and nothing else. No bond. No softness. No weakness someone could use to break him.
And now a human girl bled in his cabin and something under his ribs had moved when she looked at him. Like the echo of a song he did not know the words to.
He breathed out slowly.
The night pressed close. The village lay quiet below the hill, the small cluster of cabins tucked between trees and stone. Smoke drifted from chimneys. Distant voices murmured low. Somewhere, a wolf howled, the sound stretching thin over the dark.
Riven started down the path.
He needed to move. To do something that made sense. There were tasks that always made sense. Check the wounded. Secure the borders. Make sure his people slept safe.
Thinking about the human would not change the fact that she should have died and had not.
By the time he reached the healer's longhouse, the frost had numbed his fingers and sharpened his thoughts. The building was larger than most, its entrance draped with heavy woven cloth to keep the heat in. Light flickered beneath the edges.
He pushed aside the curtain and stepped in.
Warmth wrapped around him, thick with the scents of poultices and herbs. Low cots lined the walls. Most were empty. One near the back held a small shape curled under tan furs.
Riven's chest pulled tight.
The young warrior lay on his side, now in human form, his dark hair damp with sweat and plastered to his forehead. Bruises mottled his skin, already blooming purple and blue. Bandages circled his ribs. Claw marks carved angry red lines along his arm.
He was barely past his first shift. Too young to have taken on a rogue.
Too young to have nearly died protecting a human.
The boy's mother sat beside the cot, a hand clenched around his. Her hair was braided back from a narrow face lined with worry. Her other hand pressed tight over her mouth, as if to keep her fear from spilling into the room.
Riven knew her. Sera. A hunter. Loyal. Strong. She had lost a mate to the old Alpha's neglect. She could not lose her son too.
She shot to her feet the moment she saw Riven, her eyes flashing.
"Alpha."
He held her gaze. "Sera."
Her stare dropped briefly in respect, but the tremor in her shoulders did not ease.
"How is he?" Riven asked.
A healer, not Lira but one of her assistants, stepped from the shadows. "Alive," the woman said. "The rogue's claws broke the skin but did not reach the lung. He needs rest."
"He should not have been out there." Sera's voice shook. "He was with the late patrol, not the border watch."
"He scented the rogue," Riven said. "He moved to intercept. He stalled long enough for me to reach the girl."
"Girl," she spat softly. "The human."
There it was.
Sera's hands trembled at her sides. "My son almost died tonight. For a human your own father would have shot on sight."
Riven's teeth clenched.
He had known this was coming. Questions. Resentment. Fear.
"The rogue would have crossed our border," he said. "If he had reached the village instead of the road, your son might be dead, Sera. Others might be too. His choice to fight was not only about her."
Her throat worked.
"He is a child," she whispered.
"He is a warrior," Riven said, softer now. "And one of the bravest we have."
The boy stirred on the cot, mumbling something that sounded like an apology.
Sera's fury collapsed in on itself. She sank back to her knees, brushing hair from her son's brow with shaking fingers.
"You should have let her die," she whispered, not raising her eyes this time. "It would have been easier."
Easier.
Probably.
A part of him had thought the same thing, in the moment before he saw her eyes.
But his wolf had not.
"My duty is to more than what is easy," he said quietly. "I do not leave the injured to bleed out on our land, human or not."
Something flared in her gaze. Not agreement. Not anger, either. Something grudging. Something that remembered too well what it meant to be left behind by those with power.
Riven inclined his head once to her and the healer, then turned and left before the room could fill with more words that made his chest feel too tight.
Outside again, the cold bit at him. He welcomed it.
On the path down from the longhouse, he found Kale waiting near the gate.
The beta leaned against the wooden post, hood pushed back, hair wind-tossed. He straightened when he saw Riven, pushing away from the fence with easy familiarity.
"You look like you want to punch the mountain," Kale said.
Riven arched a brow. "You always talk to your Alpha that way?"
"Only when he lets a human into his bed," Kale said, then winced. "Cabin. I meant cabin. Your bed is none of my business."
Riven gave him a look.
Kale cleared his throat. "Right. So. Patrol reports."
"That is what I expected," Riven said. "Not commentary on my furniture."
A hint of amusement threaded through the irritation. Only Kale could get away with that kind of talk. They had trained together as boys, watched each other bleed, buried the same dead.
It was the only reason Riven tolerated his friend's mouth.
Kale sobered. "The border is clear for now. We tracked where the rogue came through. Smell was stronger near the old ravine. If there were others with him, they stayed hidden."
"Rogues do not usually travel alone," Riven said.
"I know," Kale replied. "We will go back out before dawn. I already told Cavan to rotate fresh warriors in."
Riven nodded. At least some things still followed rules he understood.
"Double the patrols along the ravine and the east ridge," he said. "No one goes out alone for the next week. I want every scent reported, even if it is only fox and fear."
Kale's eyes flicked toward the dark shape of the Alpha's cabin up the hill. "And the human?"
Riven did not look back.
"Lira says she will live," he said.
"That is not what I asked."
Riven exhaled slowly. "She stays until she can walk. Then she leaves."
Kale was quiet for a moment. The wind stirred, carrying the faint scent of pine smoke and the distant murmur of voices from other cabins.
"You know humans are going to scream," Kale said. "If she does not show up in a day, they will assume we tore her apart."
"They already assume that," Riven said. "Whether she lives or dies."
"True." Kale shifted his weight. "Which is why I should go to the communications cabin."
Riven glanced at him.
Kale shrugged. "If there is any talk on the human channels about an accident near our border, we need to know. And we should bring back anything from the wreck. Papers. Devices. Names."
Riven considered it. Kale was right. Ignorance had killed enough wolves in the old days. He would not let it happen now when they finally had something resembling a fragile peace.
"Go before dawn," Riven said. "Take Cavan with you. Bring back whatever you find that belonged to her. Phone. Identification. Anything that tells us who she is."
"I will try not to break any human laws while I am at it," Kale said lightly.
"If they catch you, run faster," Riven replied.
Kale's mouth twitched. For a heartbeat he looked like the boy Riven had grown up with, before titles and blood had turned them into something sharper.
He sobered again quickly. "And the pup?"
"Stable," Riven said. "Scared. His mother is angrier at me than the rogue."
Kale winced. "She has a point. From her side."
"I know that," Riven said. "It does not mean I will start leaving people to die for convenience."
Kale's gaze sharpened. "You really think this was chance?"
Riven's shoulders tensed.
Not this again.
"A human girl drives alone at night through the border roads," he said. "Her car hits a rogue. One of ours intervenes. I reach her. That is all."
"It is a strange coincidence," Kale said.
"It is not a pattern," Riven snapped. "Not yet. Until we know more, we treat it as what it looks like."
"And what does it look like to you?" Kale asked.
Riven thought of the way the rogue had circled her. The way her scent had cut through the forest like a thread. The way something had shifted inside him when he picked her up, some small, stubborn part of his soul that refused to go still.
He did not want to give those thoughts words. Naming things made them louder.
"It looks like trouble," he said. "The kind we cannot ignore."
Kale nodded slowly. "I will leave before first light."
"Good." Riven clasped his shoulder briefly. "Be careful."
"Always am."
"That is not true," Riven said.
Kale grinned. "Well. I will be careful this time."
Riven shook his head, but affection warmed the motion. For all his sarcasm, Kale was steady where it mattered.
He watched his beta head down the path toward the lower trails, then turned in the opposite direction.
There was one more place he needed to go before he let himself return to the human girl bleeding in his bed.
The forest deepened quickly as he left the village behind. The trees grew taller, their trunks thick and old, branches knitting together high above to block out much of the sky. Roots twisted across the path, slick with frost. He knew this trail without thinking. He had walked it as a pup. Run it as a young warrior. Stood on it as a newly made Alpha, bloodstill drying beneath his nails.
The place he was going never moved, but it always felt different each time he visited.
Tonight the air felt heavier.
As if the woods themselves were waiting.
He stepped into the small clearing and stopped.
The Oracle was already there.
She sat cross-legged on a flat stone near the center of the space, her bare feet tucked under the frayed edges of a many-layered skirt. Feathers and bits of bone dangled from braided strands of hair. Her face was painted with thin lines of pale paint that caught the moonlight, curling across her brow and cheeks in delicate patterns like vines.
Her eyes were closed. They almost always were.
"You are late," she said, before he could speak.
Riven's jaw tightened. "I did not know we had an appointment."
"You never do," she said. "That is the problem."
He folded his arms across his chest. "If this is about the rogue, I already know he crossed our border. We are handling it."
"This is not about the rogue," she replied.
Her eyes opened.
They were not any color he could name. The pale of old bone. The sheen of frost. The inside of a cloud. He had seen them only a handful of times in his life and never grown comfortable with them.
"How many times did I warn you," she asked quietly, "that taking the title of Alpha would make you the center of more than one war?"
Old memories stirred. Her voice in another clearing. Another night. The smell of blood and smoke thick in his nose. His hands still shaking from what he had done to the former Alpha to keep his people alive.
"You said leadership carried cost," he said.
"I said leadership would draw the attention of things greater than you," she corrected. "The Vein. The moon. The old promises humans tried to bury when they carved this land into maps."
He did not flinch, but something in his chest hollowed.
"You came looking for answers," she went on. "Ask your question, Riven of Wildmane."
He thought of the human in his cabin. Her limp weight in his arms. The way her skin had felt under his hands, softer than he expected, warmer. The cut of her jaw, stubborn even in sleep. The scent of her fear. The strange, treacherous way his own heartbeat had responded.
He did not want to give that away.
So he said instead, "A human crossed into Sanctuary tonight. A rogue almost killed her. One of ours stepped in. I arrived before she died."
The Oracle waited.
He ground his teeth. "Does it mean anything?"
Her lips curved. Not quite a smile. Not quite pity. "Everything means something," she said. "You do not want the answer to the question you are really asking."
"I did not come here for riddles," he growled.
"Of course you did," she said softly. "You have been walking into riddles your whole life, Alpha."
Her gaze sharpened. For a heartbeat, it felt like something huge and unseen stood behind her, looking out through her eyes.
"You carry a human in your den," she said. "A human who should be dead. A human whose blood called to a rogue and then to you."
His skin crawled.
"How do you know that?" he asked.
"The Vein listens," she answered. "The ground is not deaf to your choices. Nor blind to your mistakes."
"I made no mistake," he said. "I refused to let someone die on my land."
"Kindness," she mused. "Or instinct."
He ignored the way the word instinct scraped against him.
"Will she bring danger to my pack?" he asked.
"Yes," the Oracle said simply.
His hands curled into fists.
Her head tipped, listening to something only she could hear. "You were always going to face danger, Riven. With or without her. The question is not whether she brings it to you. The question is what you become when it comes."
The air in the clearing grew colder.
He thought of Sera's eyes. Of Kale's questions. Of the pup lying bruised and bandaged. Of Nahla's too-human face and the way she had met his gaze even while dying.
"I do not want a mate," he said suddenly.
The Oracle watched him. "You think wanting has anything to do with it?"
The ground felt unsteady beneath his boots.
His heart stumbled once in his chest.
"No," she said softly, answering a question he had not spoken aloud. "Not yet. Not fully. But the world has been waiting a long time for something to change."
He shook his head. "She is human."
"She is alive," the Oracle said. "And that is more than you expected tonight."
She rose from the stone with fluid grace. Bones chimed softly at her wrists.
"You may send her away when she can walk," she said. "You may pretend she is nothing. You may tell yourself she is only a burden, only a debt, only a problem to solve." Her eyes caught his, bright in the dim. "But you will still hear her heartbeat in your sleep."
A chill traced the length of his spine.
"How many times will you stand at a border and convince yourself you are not already crossing," she murmured.
He opened his mouth, but no words came.
The Oracle smiled then, sad and strange. "Be careful, Alpha. You are not the only one who has noticed a human girl touched by wolf blood on the road tonight."
Before he could demand more, she stepped back. The shadows folded around her. When he blinked, she was gone.
The clearing was just a ring of trees again, a stone, a strip of sky.
Riven stood very still.
His pulse thudded loud in his ears. For a long moment, the only thing he could think of was the sound of another heartbeat, weaker, stumbling, in a small cabin up the hill.
He did not want it to matter.
He turned and strode back toward the village, feet finding the path without looking.
By the time he reached his cabin, his expression was carved back into stone.
Lira was just stepping out as he approached, a basket hooked over one arm.
"How is she?" he asked, before he could stop himself.
The healer's brows lifted. "Sleeping. For the moment." She studied him, eyes too perceptive. "The leg will take time. Human bodies do not knit as quickly as ours. Weeks, maybe months before she can truly use it again."
Months.
His jaw clenched.
"She will need help when the bone finishes mending," Lira added. "To stand. To walk. To remember how to trust her own weight."
"We do not have the resources to coddle a human," he said.
"We have the resources to train pups to become warriors," Lira replied calmly. "We have the resources to mend broken ribs and torn throats. We will manage a girl who cannot yet stand."
He had no answer for that.
"I will ask some of the younger women to send clothes," she went on. "She will not heal well if she wakes every time she remembers the feel of her own blood on torn fabric. And I will bring food here until she can feed herself."
"You intend to turn my cabin into a ward," he said.
Lira's mouth twitched. "Only the one room. If you wish her moved, you should have taken her somewhere else."
He did not say that his wolf had refused to consider anywhere else when he had lifted her from the forest floor.
"Fine," he said instead.
Lira nodded, clearly hearing the rest anyway. "Try to sleep, Riven."
He almost laughed. "You know that is not how this works."
"I know you will be useless to any of us if you collapse," she said. "Even Alphas bleed when they forget they are made of flesh."
She started down the path, leaving him alone at his door.
He looked once at the basket swinging from her arm. Herbs, cloth, jars of salve. Tools to knit broken things back together.
Then he opened the door and went inside.
The cabin was quiet. The fire had settled into a low bed of coals, warmth humming softly through the room. Nahla lay where he had left her, propped slightly higher now, covers drawn to her waist. Lira had sponged the dried blood from her skin. Her face looked pale in the lantern light, lashes dark against her cheeks.
Her hair, freed from whatever had held it back before, curled wildly across his pillow.
She looked smaller in his bed than she had in his arms.
He stepped closer without thinking.
Her breathing brushed the silence. Slow. Uneven. Fighting.
He did not touch her.
He had already done more than enough he did not understand.
Still, he stood there longer than he meant to, watching the soft rise and fall of her chest, listening to the unfamiliar rhythm of a human heart beating inside a place meant for wolves.
The Oracle's words circled his mind.
You may pretend she is nothing.
You will still hear her heartbeat.
Riven turned away at last and banked the fire, the old, familiar motions anchoring his hands. He stretched out on the narrow couch near the hearth, not bothering with a blanket.
Sleep did not come.
But as the night deepened outside, he found his breathing adjusting, however unwillingly, to the fragile cadence of hers.