Prologue
Arthur
My paws hit the frozen earth in a steady and punishing rhythm. Behind me, Kael and Tora were shadows in the treeline. Their breathing was heavy and ragged, but they kept pace. We were jogging back toward the Great Hall of High-Ridge, leaving the carnage of the ravine miles behind us. I could still feel the phantom weight of her muzzle against my neck.
Eighteen years.
I had spent eighteen years shielding her and watching her walk through the Great Hall with her head down. I had watched her endure the whispers, the pity, and the cold calculations of a pack that saw her as nothing more than a bargaining chip. And I thought I was sending her to a life of silence. Oh, how I was wrong.
Every time my heart hammered against my ribs, I smelled it again. Starlight and sweet milk. Wild honey and rain-drenched pine. It was stained into my fur, a scent so potent and foreign that even the mountain wind could not strip it away.
Make sure everyone knows.
Her voice had not just been in my head. It had been in my marrow. I had seen her standing on that ridge. She was not the fragile, silent girl I had raised. She was something ancient and lethal. She was a midnight-blue predator with eyes like molten gold.
“Beta,” Kael panted through the link. His thoughts vibrated with a mix of terror and disbelief. “The colors on those wolves... they... That was the Night-StaCommand. Why did they not kill us?”
“Because they were not there for us,” I answered. My voice was a low growl in the dark.
I did not tell him the rest. I did not tell him that the most feared Alpha in the history of the Black-Spines had stood over me like a shield. I did not tell him that the King’s brother looked at my daughter as if she were the only thing keeping the world from tilting off its axis.
The lights of the High-Ridge settlement began to flicker through the pines ahead. The Great Hall sat on the highest peak. It was a fortress of silver stone and arrogance. Silas would be there, probably still celebrating the fact that he had settled the border dispute by giving them Wren.
My jaw tightened. Silas had discarded her because she was weak, a liability to the purity of the High-Ridge line. He thought he had cleared his hands of a problem.
He had no idea what he had actually let go.
As we cleared the final rise, the gate guards bristled. Their hackles rose as they caught the scent of the neutral zone on us and the heavy, honeyed musk of Ghost.
“Arthur?” the guard called out. His eyes widened. “You are bleeding. What happened at the pass?”
I did not stop. I headed straight for the heavy oak doors of the Hall. My silver fur bristled with a newfound heat.
I was about to walk into a den of vipers to tell them that the girl they had mocked and discarded was now the apex predator guarding their borders. Silas wanted to know if his tithe reached Ember-Fell safely. I was going to tell him she did more than reach it. She claimed it.
