My three blood brothers are going to shatter my legs and trade me to the enemy Alpha for the Omega they all share as a mate. And right now — I was tied to my own bed. The taste of the farewell drink is still on my tongue — bitter, herbal, wrong. My wrists are bound. My ankles are bound. The silver in the ropes burns my skin and keeps my wolf locked deep inside me, silent, useless. Caelan stands at the foot of my bed with a silver-laced iron rod in his hand. Marek is pinning my shoulders. Sable is pinning my legs. "Raven," Caelan says, "don't hate us. Elara can't be the one they take." He swings. The rod comes down on my right leg. My bone snaps. I'm going to hear that sound for the rest of my life. Silver bites into the break. My wolf screams inside me and can't get out. I don't scream. I won't give them that. "So it should be me," I say through my teeth. Blood is filling my mouth from where I bit my tongue. Marek's grip on my shoulders tightens until I feel something crack in the joint. He won't look at me. His jaw is locked so hard it's shaking. "Raven, this is for the pack." "This is for her," I spit. Sable's hands tighten on my ankles. His eyes — usually the warm ones, the laughing ones, the brother who used to braid my hair before patrols — are cold as winter stone. "You're the Iron Wolf," he says quietly. "You're worth more alive than dead. They might not kill you." "Might not." I laugh, and it sounds like something dying. The rod comes up again. I see Caelan's hand on the grip, steady. The crack is louder this time. Sweat soaks through my shirt. My vision tunnels. I hear, very far away, Caelan drop the rod. I hear him wipe my blood off his face with his sleeve. Slow. Careful. The way our mother taught him to clean a hunting knife. He leans over me. His hand brushes my hair back from my forehead like I'm a pup again. "Sleep, little wolf," he murmurs. "When you wake up, Elara will be home." I dig my nails into the bed frame. I find the last scrap of breath in my body. "Caelan." He stiffens. "Marek. Sable." I make them hear their names. I make them hear them in my voice — the voice that called for them when I was six and lost in the north woods, the voice that howled their victory after Bonecrag's first defeat. I smile. Blood bubbles between my teeth. "You're going to regret this. All three of you. For the rest of your lives." Caelan's face does something then. Something small. Something that breaks. But he turns away. Marek lets go of my shoulders. Sable lets go of my legs. They line up behind their oldest brother like soldiers, like strangers, like three men who have already buried me in their heads. They walk out without looking back. The door closes. The lock turns. Click. And just like that, I, the Iron Wolf of Ashfall Pack, become a broken thing chained in my own bedroom, waiting to be delivered.
They put me in an iron-barred cage and roll me toward Ghostfang Ridge. Seven days. Seven days of every rut in the road splitting my legs open again. The bandages soak through by the second day. By the fourth, the cloth has fused to the wound and I can smell my own blood going wrong in the heat. The warrior driving the cage is one of Sable's. Young. Loyal. He keeps his head down the whole ride. When my lips crack from thirst, he passes a waterskin through the bars without looking at me. "Forgive me, Commander." He says it every time. I drink. I don't answer. I have no hate left for him. I'm saving all of it. On the seventh night, the cage stops. I smell the border before I see it. Pine. Cold stone. Old blood in the dirt where Ashfall and Bonecrag have been killing each other for a hundred years. Ghostfang Ridge. Two Bonecrag warriors haul me out by the arms. My legs drag behind me like meat on a hook. They drop me in the dirt between the two pack lines. I lift my head. And there he is. The reason. Elara Wren. She is wrapped in a thick fur cloak that I have seen before — Caelan's cloak, the one our mother wove for him the year he became Enforcer. Marek is already pressing a steaming waterskin into her hands. Sable is brushing snow off her hair like she's made of glass. She is unharmed. Not a bruise. Not a scratch. Not a single hair out of place. Beyond her stands Alpha Yvarn — in full battle leathers, his new Beta at his shoulder like a shadow. He looks down at me the way a man looks at a wolf he's been hunting for years and has finally cornered. His smile is a slow, hungry thing. "So," he says. "The Iron Wolf. Crawling in my dirt." His warriors laugh. My brothers don't say a word. Caelan steps forward and bows his head — bows it — to the Alpha who slaughtered our patrols for three winters. "Alpha Yvarn. We've brought her. May we take Elara home?" His voice is careful. Almost begging. I have never heard my brother beg. Yvarn laughs out loud. He points his riding crop at me. "This?" he drawls. "This is the Iron Wolf of Ashfall? She can't even crawl." His men howl. My brothers' faces go red with shame — and still, still, none of them speak. They just close ranks tighter around Elara, like she's the one who needs protecting from the humiliation. And then Elara peeks out from behind Caelan's shoulder. She looks down at my legs. At the bandages. At the blood frozen black on my trousers. There is no guilt in her face. There is something else. Her lips curve. Just slightly. Just for me. A small, perfect, secret smile. A winner's smile. I have known Elara since she was a pup. I carried her on my back through the first snow she ever saw. I let her cry into my fur the night her parents died. I gave my brothers permission to court her, all three of them, when the bond first sparked between them. And this is what she gives me back. A smile. I press my forehead into the cold dirt and I laugh. Quiet. Bloody. Real. I am going to live until I take it off her face myself.
Yvarn flicks his wrist and his warriors release Elara. She gathers her skirts and runs to my brothers. "Caelan!" She throws herself into his chest, sobbing like a pup who's been beaten. Caelan catches her and wraps his cloak tighter around her shoulders. His mouth presses into her hair. "You're safe, little moon. You're safe now. We're going home." Marek closes in on her other side, hands cupping her face, checking, checking, checking. "Did they touch you? Did they hurt you? Tell me, Elara —" Sable's hand is at the small of her back, steady, possessive, the way a mate's hand sits on his mate. Three brothers. One Omega. One mate-bond strong enough to break a sister's legs over. Nobody looks at me. Not one of them. I lie in the dirt at the edge of their circle. The trade is done. I'm just the broken thing they left behind. My wolf is silent. My legs are screaming. And I have never seen anything in my life uglier than this — the way my brothers fuss over her while their own blood bleeds out four feet away. Yvarn watches it all. He's enjoying himself. "Take her," he says. Two Bonecrag warriors hook their hands under my arms and start dragging me toward their line. My legs leave two long red trails in the snow. As they pull me past my brothers, I turn my head. I use the last of my strength. "Caelan Ashwood. Marek Ashwood. Sable Ashwood." Three names. Three blows. All three of them go still. Elara, tucked safe in their arms, looks at me over Caelan's shoulder. Her smile widens. "You traded me," I say, and my voice carries across the snow like a death-howl, "for an Omega who can't fight her way out of a den." Caelan's hand fists in Elara's cloak. "One day," I tell them, "Ashfall lands will burn. Bodies will line every border. And it will be because of what you did here today." Marek will not meet my eyes. Sable's face has gone dead white. "Get her out of here!" Caelan roars. Not at me. At Yvarn's warriors. "Get her out of here." They drag me faster. The Bonecrag line closes around me. The Ashfall gates groan shut behind me. I hear them lock. My pack is gone. They bring me to Yvarn's war tent. He is already seated when they throw me down on the rugs. The tent smells of pine smoke and oiled steel. He's cleaning his curved silver blade, slow, the way Caelan cleaned my blood off his face. "Three winters ago," he says, not looking up, "at Stonehollow Pass, you killed ten thousand of my warriors. You took my Beta. He was my brother." He lifts his eyes. They are pale and flat and full of something patient. "I swore on his bones I would make you wish you'd died on that field." He stands. He walks to me. He crouches. The silver blade comes up under my chin and he tips my face toward his. His smile is gentle. That's the worst part. "And now, little Iron Wolf," Alpha Yvarn murmurs, "I have you."
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