Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 39

POV: Adeline

The healer's cottage sat at the edge of the clearing, half-hidden by trailing vines and the sprawling branches of an ancient oak. Smoke curled from its chimney in thin grey ribbons, carrying the scent of dried lavender and something earthier—roots, maybe, or the particular mustiness of old paper.

I had come for herbs. Nothing more.

My sleep had been restless despite the warmth of Aiden's arms, my dreams tangled with shadows I couldn't quite name. Freya had suggested valerian root, mentioned that Elara kept a supply for wolves whose minds wouldn't quiet. A simple errand. Routine. Safe.

I should have known better.

The door opened before I could knock—swinging inward on silent hinges to reveal the dim interior beyond. Elara stood in the doorway, her silver hair loose around her shoulders, her pale eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my wolf go still.

"Adeline," she said. Not a greeting. An acknowledgment, weighted with something I couldn't read. "I wondered when you'd come."

"Freya said you might have valerian root. For sleep."

"I might." She stepped aside, gesturing me in. "Enter. We'll see what you actually need."

The cottage was smaller than it looked from outside—a single room crowded with hanging bundles of dried plants, shelves lined with glass jars, a narrow bed tucked into one corner. A fire crackled in the hearth despite the mild weather, casting dancing shadows across walls that seemed to breathe with their own kind of life.

Elara moved to a workbench cluttered with mortar and pestle, dried flowers, small cloth pouches. Her hands sorted through the chaos with practiced ease, selecting jars and setting them aside.

"You've been here two months now," she said without turning around. "Longer than you planned."

"Things changed."

"Things." A soft sound that might have been a laugh. "Yes. Things have a way of doing that around the Alpha."

I didn't respond. There was something in her tone that made me wary—an undercurrent I couldn't quite identify, like hearing music from a distant room and not being able to name the song.

She turned, a small bundle of dried valerian in her hand. Crossed the space between us with steps that seemed too quiet for the creaking floorboards.

"Here," she said, holding out the herbs. "This should help with—"

Her fingers brushed my wrist as I reached for the bundle.

And she seized it.

Her grip was iron—far stronger than her thin frame suggested, her fingers wrapping around my wrist with a force that made me gasp. Her pale eyes went distant, unfocused, the pupils dilating until only a thin ring of grey remained around wells of black.

"Elara—"

"You're keeping something from him." Her voice had changed—deeper, rougher, as if something else was speaking through her. "Something buried. Something that festers. It will poison everything if you don't release it."

My blood went cold.

"Let go of me."

"I see shadows," she continued, as if I hadn't spoken. "I see fire. I see a face you know—watching, waiting, circling closer. I see the threads that bind you to what happened, and I see them wrapped around this pack like a noose."

"Let go."

Her grip tightened. "The secret you carry is not yours alone. It belongs to everyone it endangers. And you are endangering them all by keeping it locked behind your teeth."

I yanked my arm back—hard enough to break her hold, hard enough to send me stumbling against the edge of a shelf. Glass jars rattled. Something fell and shattered on the floor, releasing a sharp green scent I couldn't identify.

Elara blinked. The blackness receded from her eyes, leaving behind the pale grey I had grown accustomed to. She looked down at her own hand as if surprised to find it empty.

"What did you see?" My voice came out ragged. Afraid.

She was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was her own—older, wearier, stripped of whatever force had gripped her moments before.

"Not enough," she said. "But enough to know."

"Know what?"

"That you're carrying something that will destroy you if you don't put it down." Her gaze found mine, steady and unyielding. "And that you're not the only one who will be destroyed when it finally breaks free."

I pressed my back against the shelf, my heart hammering. The valerian had fallen somewhere—scattered across the floor with the shattered jar, useless now. I couldn't make myself care about it.

My wrist throbbed where she had gripped it. I looked down, half-expecting to see bruises forming, but the skin was unmarked. The pain was deeper than that—somewhere beneath the surface, where her words had landed like stones in still water.

She had seen. Not everything, but enough. Enough to know I was a danger wrapped in a woman's skin, a threat disguised as a refugee.

"I can't tell him," I whispered.

"Can't?" Elara tilted her head, studying me with the clinical detachment of someone who had seen too much to be surprised by anything. "Or won't?"

The question landed like a blow.

"Both," I admitted. The word tasted like ash.

She nodded slowly, as if I had confirmed something she already suspected. Moving to a chair by the hearth, she lowered herself into it with the careful movements of old joints and older burdens.

"I've lived a long time," she said. "Seen many wolves come through this pack—some who stayed, some who left, some who were buried beneath the pines at the edge of the territory. And if there's one truth I've learned, it's this: secrets are patient hunters. They wait. They grow. They feed on silence until they're strong enough to devour everything you've built."

I couldn't speak. My throat had closed around something sharp.

"The truth will come out, child." Her voice softened, though her eyes remained hard. "It always does. The only question is how—and when. Better if it comes from you. Better if you choose the moment rather than letting the moment choose you."

"And if it destroys everything anyway?"

"Then at least you'll have been the one to speak it." She leaned back in her chair, the firelight carving deep shadows into the lines of her face. "There's a kind of honor in that. A kind of freedom. More than you'll find in carrying this weight until it crushes you."

The word freedom caught in my mind like a thorn. I had almost forgotten what that felt like—to move through the world without the constant pressure of unsaid things pressing against my ribs. To look at Aiden without the guilt rising like bile in my throat.

I stood there for a long moment, the broken glass glittering at my feet, the scent of herbs thick in the air. My mind raced through possibilities—telling him today, telling him tomorrow, telling him never. Each path led somewhere dark. Each choice carried a cost I wasn't sure I could pay.

"I should go," I finally said.

Elara didn't try to stop me. She just watched as I stepped over the shattered jar, moved toward the door, reached for the handle with fingers that wouldn't stop trembling.

"Adeline."

I paused. Didn't turn around.

"He loves you," she said quietly. "I've known that boy since he was small and scared and bleeding from wounds no child should bear. I've never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. That kind of love can survive many things." A pause. "But it cannot survive discovering that the person he trusted most didn't trust him back."

I opened the door. Sunlight spilled across the threshold, warm and indifferent.

"Thank you for the warning," I said.

Then I stepped outside and walked back toward the packhouse, the secret coiled in my chest like a living thing, ticking, ticking, ticking.

The countdown had begun.

I just didn't know how much time I had left.