Chapter 7: An Impermissible Love
The Elder's name was Caelan. He had the eyes of someone who had never found any of his decisions difficult.
He explained the Moonheart's obligations in the tone a man uses when he is not explaining but informing—when the conversation is not a negotiation. The Holy Maiden would reside in the sanctuary. The Holy Maiden would attend the lunar rites. The Holy Maiden's spiritual energy belonged to the Lycan people.
"And the laws governing the Moonheart?" Ava asked.
She felt Lex's attention sharpen from across the room.
Caelan set a text on the table—a scroll that cracked at the edges when unfurled, written in a script that looked older than the kingdom. He read three provisions without inflection. No mate bond. No political authority. No romantic attachment to any wolf.
Violation, he explained, was considered heresy. The penalty was death.
For both parties.
The room after Caelan left was the loudest silence Ava had ever inhabited.
Lex stood at the window. His back was to her, but she could feel him clearly—a wall of controlled fury holding a larger, darker thing in place.
"Lex—"
"Don't." His voice was very quiet.
"We haven't—we're not—" She stopped. The inadequacy of that was almost offensive.
"I know what we are." He turned, and his face was the same expression she'd felt in the cave: the grief of a man who had calculated the cost and accepted it. "You're going to have to leave this room in five minutes. The Elder will be watching. After tonight, there are protocols—you'll have your own quarters, your own attendants. Every interaction will be observed."
"You're telling me to stay away from you."
"I'm telling you how it works."
She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to ask why he was accepting this so readily, why he wasn't fighting it, why he was standing there looking at her like she was something he was already in the process of losing. Instead she said, very quietly: "And if I don't want to stay away?"
The silence stretched.
"Then someone will die for it," he said. "And I promise you it won't be you."
She left. She made it as far as the corridor before she stopped walking and pressed her back against the cold stone wall and stayed very still and worked very hard on not crying.
She mostly succeeded.
