Read Chapter 38: The Moon's Promise

The new community center smelled of sawdust, linseed oil, and the faint copper tang that Iona had come to associate with wolf blood. It was a good smell now. Familiar. She ran her hand along the reception desk she’d helped sand herself, feeling the smooth grain of Scottish oak beneath her fingers, and allowed herself a moment of pure, uncomplicated contentment.

From the treatment room behind her came the low murmur of Lachlan’s voice, patient and steady, and the occasional whine of a young wolf. Morag’s first shift had been three months ago—a brutal, terrifying night that had ended with Iona’s stabilizing serum holding just long enough for Lachlan to talk her down from the cliff edge of her own panic. Since then, Morag had shifted four times. Each one had been less chaotic. This evening, she was here for her monthly checkup, and from the sound of it, she was arguing with Lachlan about the size of the needle.

“It’s a blood draw, not a spear,” Iona called through the open door. “Sit still.”

“Easy for you to say,” Morag’s voice came back, muffled. “You’re not the one being stabbed.”

“I’ve been stabbed more times than you’ve had hot dinners,” Iona said, grinning as she pulled the door open. Morag sat on the exam table, legs swinging, her wild dark hair now tamed into a neat braid. She’d filled out since the rescue—cheeks no longer hollow, eyes bright with something that looked close to peace. She wore a Ross tartan shawl over her shoulders, a gift from Meghan herself, and the gesture had meant more to the village than any formal apology.

Lachlan stood beside her, holding a syringe with the practiced ease of a man who’d learned veterinary medicine from watching Iona work. “She’s not wrong about the needle,” he said, winking at Morag. “But I’ve got steady hands.”

“You’ve got an ulterior motive,” Morag shot back. “You just want to see if my wolf’s getting stronger.”

“That’s the point of the blood draw,” Iona said, stepping in and taking the syringe from Lachlan. She swabbed the crook of Morag’s elbow with practiced precision. “And yes. We do want to see if your wolf’s getting stronger. Because if the last three hunts are anything to go by, you’re outpacing half the born wolves.”

Morag’s cheeks flushed with pride. She’d found a place in the pack—not as a victim, but as a hunter. The Rosses had been slow to accept her, their guilt a heavy thing, but Morag had refused their pity and earned their respect instead. She’d run with them on the last full moon, and Iona had watched from the edge of the wood as Morag’s grey wolf kept pace with the Ross alpha herself.

“Easy,” Iona murmured, sliding the needle in. Morag flinched but held still. The vial filled with dark blood, and Iona withdrew, pressing a cotton pad to the site. “You’re clear to run tomorrow night.”

Morag hopped off the table, rubbing her arm. “Good. Meghan wants to do a joint hunt with the Blackwoods. Something about the deer in the eastern glen getting too bold.”

“That sounds like a Meghan plan,” Lachlan said, and his voice carried no trace of the old tension. Time and the blood echo treaty had smoothed the jagged edges between the packs. Meghan Ross had kept her word—the chapel danger had been a nest of rogue shifters, driven mad by an ancient curse, and the combined strength of both packs had purged them from the tunnels beneath the stones. The chapel itself had been reconsecrated, its altar restored, and a new ritual had finally been sealed with Iona’s blood as witness.

Morag pulled a face at the two of them, a gesture so human and young that Iona’s heart clenched. “I’ll tell her you’ll both be there. She’s been asking about the new center. Says it’s about time the village had a proper healer’s hall.”

“Tell her the door’s always open,” Iona said. “And bring her by for tea before the hunt. I’ve got a new blend from the village shop.”

Morag nodded, stuffing her arms into her jacket. “When are you two going to make it official?” she asked, and her voice was casual, but her eyes were sharp. “Everyone’s taking bets.”

Lachlan smiled—a slow, easy expression that had become more common in the past months. “Ask us again after tomorrow night.”

Morag’s eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t press. She gave a jaunty salute and slipped out the back door into the gathering dusk.

Iona turned to Lachlan, her hands on her hips. “What was that about?”

He crossed to her, taking her face in his hands, his thumbs tracing her cheekbones. The gesture was so familiar now that she almost didn’t notice the shift in his expression—something solemn and soft beneath the surface. “I have something to show you,” he said. “But it’s not here.”

It was a clear night, the kind that made the Highlands look like a postcard from another age. The moon overhead was a slim crescent, waxing toward fullness, and the stars were so bright they seemed close enough to touch.

Lachlan led her through the estate grounds, past the restored chapel whose stones now sat quiet and cold, past the gardens where the first spring flowers were beginning to push through the soil. He stopped at the old oak at the edge of the moor, where they’d sat the night before the treaty, and turned to face her.

The Blackwood estate rose behind them, its windows lit with the warm glow of a home that was no longer a mausoleum. The village below sparkled with lights of its own—the new community center, the row of cottages that had been repaired with Ross labor, the schoolhouse that Iona had helped repaint herself.

“I had this made,” Lachlan said, pulling something from his pocket. It caught the starlight, and Iona’s breath caught as she recognised it.

The locket was new, but it was also old. The original frame had been fire-damaged, twisted beyond repair, but Lachlan had kept it. Now it sat embedded in a new shell of silver and onyx, the two stones melded together so seamlessly you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

“I asked the Ross smith to work on it,” he said. “Half Blackwood onyx, half Ross. When I told Meghan what it was for, she insisted on contributing her own piece. There’s a chamber in the back for your herbs, and the front opens to hold the blood seals of both alphas.”

Iona took it from his hands, turning it over. The work was exquisite—delicate filigree traced the edges, and the onyx glowed with an inner depth that seemed to breathe. She opened the front clasp. Inside, two tiny vials sat side by side, one filled with a dark, almost black liquid, the other with a deep crimson.

“Blackwood blood,” Lachlan said quietly. “And Ross. Bound to yours.”

Her throat tightened. “Lachlan…”

“I’m not asking you to be a symbol,” he said, and his voice was rough with emotion. “You’ve already given enough of yourself to this pack, to both packs, to Morag and the village and everyone else who needs you. I’m asking you to be mine. To be ours. To be the heart of this place, openly, for as long as you’ll have me.”

He knelt in the grass, the moonlight silvering his dark hair, and looked up at her with those steady grey eyes that had once held a wolf’s fear and now held only a man’s hope.

“Iona MacRae. Will you be my mate? My partner? The matriarch of a pack that’s finally whole?”

She looked down at him, this man who had once been a stranger, who had become her anchor, her confidant, her fierce and gentle wolf. She thought of the Glasgow practice she’d fled, the shame of failure that had driven her north. She thought of Morag’s first word, of the chapel stones falling silent, of the village lights below.

She opened the back of the locket and tucked a sprig of dried heather inside—the same heather she’d carried from Glasgow, the one that had been in her pocket the day she arrived.

Then she knelt in front of him, taking his face in her hands, and pressed her forehead to his.

“Yes,” she said. “A thousand times yes.”

His arms came around her, and he pulled her to her feet, burying his face in her hair. The moon hung low over the horizon, patient and bright, and somewhere in the village a dog barked and was answered by the distant howl of a wolf—not a threat, just a voice joining the chorus.

Iona closed her hand around the new locket, warm against her chest, and let herself believe that this was what home felt like.

“Tomorrow night,” Lachlan said against her ear, “I’ll run with you. Both of us, together, as one pack.”

She laughed, bright and unfettered. “And I’ll be waiting with a first-aid kit when you get back.”

“You’re always waiting,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “That’s what I love about you.”

She pulled back to look at him, at this estate, at the life she had built from the ruins of an old one. The empty locket had been a promise she’d made to herself—to find a better life, to have good luck. She hadn’t known then that the luck would come wrapped in fur and moonlight, in a pack of wolves and a village that had chosen to trust her.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

And they walked back through the garden together, under the rising moon, into the light.