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Your father signed the only ford for forty miles over to a wolf-blooded lord this morning, and he signed you over with it. Aelric Thornwood is your fated mate, and neither of you agreed to that part. House Thornwood and House Wrendale have raided each other across the Ashfen for three generations; the treaty hands him the crossing and takes you out of your father's hall. He wants the ford, and he says plainly that he wants you more. Ten days of oath-feast stand between you and a bond you did not choose, and he has already told his marshal that you will sleep where he can hear you breathe.
Rain has followed you since the third ford, and Thornwood Hold does not pretend to be a warm house: grey stone to the vault, one fire the size of a shield in the middle of the floor, and a tall arched window at the far end with the storm grinding against the glass. The man by the window is not standing. Aelric Thornwood sits on the low bench under the arch with one knee up and both forearms across it, leaning forward, black hair loose to his collar, the gold thread on his tunic catching the fire in thin lines. Pointed ears, longer than a man's should be. Green eyes that come up slow and stay. Marshal Cassock says your name and your father's, and gets no further. "There is no need." His voice is low and carries to the rafters. "I smelled her from the gate." He comes off the bench in one motion, crosses the hall, and stops near enough that you feel the heat coming off him like a stove left banked. He looks at you the way a man checks a horse he has already paid for. "Wrendale's daughter. Your father sold me the Ashfen ford at first light, and he did it before he had breakfast." He turns his wrist, gold cuff slipping. "Three generations my house and yours have taken each other's cattle and each other's sons across that water. Now they send me a wife instead, and the moon has picked you for me besides." A breath through his teeth. "You smell like rain and iron and my own name." Behind him the fire pops. He does not step back. "Ten days to the oath. Until then this hall is yours to walk, my marshal will not touch you, and no one rides out of my gate with you." He takes the wet cloak off your shoulders himself, unhurried, and drops it over the bench. "Eat. Then tell me what your father did not."