Rafe’s first memory was of blood in the snow.
He had a hundred others that came after—his mother’s laugh, the crackle of a fire in the den, the sting of a wooden sword on his knuckles—but that one remained, bright and cold and sharp as a knife.
He’d been four. Old enough to shift under a full moon but not old enough to fight, not really. His father’s body had steamed in the winter air, the white ground around him splashed with red. An Ashridge wolf had stood over him, panting, a chunk of flesh hanging from its jaws.
Rafe had howled so hard his throat had nearly torn.
That had been his first lesson: Ashridge killed his blood.
The rest of his education simply built on that.
* * *
“Again.”
The command snapped across the training glade like a whip. Rafe ground his teeth, rolled to his feet, and lunged at Oris without waiting to catch his breath.
He didn’t need to see his opponent’s smirk to know it was there. Oris’s scent carried smugness like skunk.
They were in human form this morning, bare chests slick with sweat, feet sliding in the churned mud. The glade behind Ironclaw’s den had once been a peaceful meadow. Now it was a scarred bowl of trampled earth, ringed by watching wolves in various states of undress.
Rafe feinted left, then spun right, ducking under Oris’s right hook and driving his shoulder into the older wolf’s ribs. There was a satisfying oof as air burst from Oris’s lungs. Rafe hooked his leg behind Oris’s knee and yanked.
They went down together. Rafe landed on top, his elbow smashing into Oris’s chest. He bared his teeth and drove his forearm across Oris’s throat, pinning him to the ground.
“Yield,” Rafe snarled.
Oris’s fingers scrabbled at his arm. His eyes flashed wolf-gold. He gurgled, coughed, then managed a rough, “Y—”
“Enough.”
The command froze them both.
Rafe’s muscles locked for a heartbeat, then he pushed off Oris and rolled away, coming up in a crouch. His breath sawed in and out. Mud streaked his knees. A trickle of blood ran from his split lip, salt-iron on his tongue.
Joren stood at the edge of the glade, arms folded over his chest.
The alpha rarely came down to the training grounds these days. When he did, the air changed. The young ones straightened. The veterans stopped laughing. Even the pups playing with sticks on the fringe quieted, ears pricked.
He wasn’t imposing in the way some alphas were. Not massive, not bristling with visible aggression. His power was quieter, coiled. A lean, pale man with graying hair shaved close to his scalp, eyes a washed-out blue that missed nothing. His presence pressed on Rafe’s skin like a weight.
“Rafe,” Joren said. His voice carried, even without a shout. “What did you do wrong?”
Rafe wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I hesitated at the first opening.”
“And?” Joren prompted.
“I overcommitted on the second.” Rafe’s jaw ached. He could feel his wolf pacing under his skin, still hungry for the fight.
“And why does that matter?”
“Because if he’d had a knife, I’d be bleeding out in the grass instead of him,” Rafe said.
A faint smile touched Joren’s mouth. It never reached his eyes.
“Good. You’re learning.” His gaze flicked to Oris, who was dragging himself upright, rubbing his throat. “Oris.”
Oris looked up sharply. The bruise forming along his jaw stood out dark on his russet skin. “Alpha.”
“What did you do wrong?” Joren asked.
Oris hesitated, eyes darting to Rafe. “I… underestimated him.”
“You always underestimate your opponent,” Joren said mildly. “That’s your flaw. You assume strength is visible. That size and age will win you every battle. Rafe could have killed you twice in that exchange.”
Oris’s nostrils flared. “He’s lighter. Faster. That’s all.”
“And that’s all it takes to sink teeth into your throat,” Joren said. His gaze slid back to Rafe. “You both have something to learn from this. Oris, humility. Rafe…”
Rafe straightened, pulse jumping. “Yes, Alpha.”
“You’re my enforcer.” Joren’s gaze pinned him in place. “My teeth. When I say bite, you bite. When I say hold, you hold. You don’t get to indulge your rage or your pride. Your job is to end conflicts before they cost us blood. Or to start them when I say so. Understood?”
The title—enforcer—still sat strange in Rafe’s ears, even a year after he’d earned it. It was a heavy word. A heavier responsibility.
He swallowed, the memory of his father’s broken body flaring in his mind. Then another memory, more recent: an Ashridge boy’s shocked face as Rafe’s claws tore his side open during the raid, two winters past. The boy had looked barely old enough to shave.
He shoved that image away.
“Yes, Alpha,” he said.
“Good.” Joren turned away slightly, raising his voice to address the rest of the watching wolves. “Enough bruises for this morning. Clean up. Eat. We meet at midday in the council hollow.”
A rustle of surprise went around the glade.
Midday meetings in the council hollow were rare. That was where the elders gathered under the twisted roots of the old oaks to chew on grievances and argue over tradition. Most of the pack only stepped foot there for major matters: funerals, naming ceremonies, announcements important enough to ripple through the whole pack.
Or, Rafe thought grimly, for talks of war.
He glanced at Oris, but the older wolf was already turning away, rolling his shoulders, pretending he hadn’t nearly been choked into unconsciousness. Others were drifting toward the stream at the edge of the training glade, stripping to rinse the mud off in the icy water.
Rafe’s skin itched. He needed to move. Run. Get away from the bristling anticipation in the air for a minute.
He shifted.
It rolled over him like heat lightning, bones flexing, skin prickling. His spine curved, his fingers lengthening into paws, claws scraping the dirt. Fur burst along his arms, down his back, across his chest, black with an odd dusting of lighter grey along his shoulders, like ash. His jaw stretched, mouth filling with fangs.
In seconds, the world tilted into the sharp-edged clarity of his wolf.
Colors dulled, but scents roared to life. Sweat and churned earth and pine. The faint metallic tang of the practice weapons in the rack. Somewhere, under it all, the colder scent of the stone den complex behind them.
Rafe shook once, sending a spray of mud from his flanks, then bolted for the tree line.
He heard someone call his name. Didn’t look back.
* * *
The forest north of Ironclaw’s den was denser than the southern reaches. Pines crowded close, their trunks dark and damp. The air held the sting of sap and old snow in the sheltered hollows.
Rafe ran until the burn in his legs drowned out the buzz in his head. He leapt over fallen logs, crashed through bracken, reveled in the stretch of muscle and the pound of his heart.
In wolf form, memories came in scents and flashes, not words. His father’s laugh smelled like smoked meat and leather. The first time he’d fought a wolf from another pack, the air had tasted like copper and fear.
Ashridge had a particular scent. It was in the way the wind curled over their border stones, picking up traces of their wolves’ fur, the herbs they burned in their rituals, the particular musk of their dens near the river.
Rafe could smell it even now, distant but distinct, north and east. The line between their lands and Ironclaw’s was invisible except for the occasional carved stone, but every wolf knew it like they knew their own tail.
When his lungs finally protested enough, he slowed to a trot and found a shallow stream. The water was almost painfully cold as he lapped it. It tasted of stone and last year’s leaves. No taint of rot. No foreign scent.
He lifted his head, dripping, and scented the wind again.
Rogue wolves didn’t smell like packs. They smelled… wrong. Twisted. Like meat left out too long. Most went rogue because something had broken in them. Grief. Madness. A curse that ate their reason. They drifted along the borders, pushed away from pack lands, scavenging, snapping at any hand or paw extended.
Rafe had put down more than one. It was never pleasant, but it had to be done. A rogue was a risk to everyone.
Today, he smelled none.
He turned back toward the den, shaking water from his fur, and let his mind drift as his paws carried him home.
He hadn’t lied to Joren. He understood his role. His father had been an enforcer before him. Rafe had grown up watching him answer only to the alpha, his word law when Joren was not present. Enforcers bent their wolves to the needs of the pack. They were steel—not for themselves, but for others.
Still.
Sometimes, when he lay awake at night listening to the quiet breaths of the sleeping den around him, he saw that Ashridge boy’s face again.
The boy couldn’t have been more than seventeen, eighteen at most. Dark hair, long and tangled. Fear wide in his eyes. Rafe had hit him hard, slamming him into a wall, claws driving into the boy’s ribs. Heat had gushed over his hands. The boy had wheezed, tried to say something. Blood had bubbled on his lips.
For an instant, Rafe’s hands had frozen. He’d felt his wolf falter, puzzled.
Then the roar of the raid had surged back in—the clash of wolves, the crackle of burning thatch, someone screaming. An Ashridge warrior had come at Rafe from the side, and he’d had to wrench away from the boy, turning to meet the blow.
By the time he’d looked back, the boy had slid down the wall and lay still. Smoke had curled around him. His eyes had stared, unblinking.
A healer had reached him eventually. Rafe had seen her across the chaos—a woman with hair a dark tumble around her shoulders, hands slick with someone’s blood as she pressed them into a wound. Her face had been streaked with ash and soot, but he’d noticed her mouth, grim and set, eyes burning.
He’d turned away. There’d been no room in him then for the thought of a healer on the other side.
Now, two winters later, there was a truce. A fragile one, balanced on the edge of old grudges and new practicalities. Joren hated it. Rafe wasn’t sure what he felt about it.
Peace meant fewer chances to even the score of his father’s death.
It also meant fewer dead boys on the floor.
He huffed, a hard exhale that frosted white in the cold air, then lengthened his stride. Midday was not far, and Joren did not like to be kept waiting.
* * *
The council hollow was a bowl scooped out of the earth, ringed by oak and ash. Roots arched overhead like ribs, woven with generations of charms: bones strung on sinew, feathers, carved stones. Smoke from the central fire pit curled up through gaps in the tangled canopy.
The elders sat in a rough circle, knees creaking, their wolf-gold eyes still sharp even if their pelts had gone grey. The rest of the pack ringed them in standing rows. Rafe shouldered his way through the crowd to stand near the front. Other enforcers and Joren’s lieutenants flanked him.
Joren stood by the fire, his silhouette cut in stark relief against the flames. He waited until the murmur of voices died before he spoke.
“We have had quiet for two winters,” he began. “No border raids. No battles. Our dead from the last war have had time to be mourned.”
A ripple went through the crowd at the word war. Lips curled, eyes flashed. Rafe’s own wolf bristled remembering it: blood and snow, howls and steel.
“Some of you have grown… comfortable,” Joren went on. “Soft. You think peace is something we can trust. That Ashridge has changed. That they have forgotten their thirst for our land.”
He let the silence sit, his gaze raking the faces around him. Rafe could feel the pack shift uneasily.
“They have not,” Joren said. “And neither have I.”
Rafe’s chest tightene. He’d heard this speech before, in different words.
“We agreed to a truce because both of our packs were bleeding,” Joren continued. “Because winter was upon us and we had pups to feed. Because the elders in the council threatened to withdraw their support if we did not pause. That pause has… served its purpose.”
A low murmur. Rafe saw one of the elders—gray-bearded, blind in one eye—stiffen. Others leaned forward.
“What are you saying, Alpha?” Elder Harn croaked. “That you mean to break the treaty?” His tone was more curious than alarmed. Harn was no friend of Ashridge.
“I am saying,” Joren said, voice smooth, “that Ashridge is weak. They lost half their fighters in the last war. Their healer is young and untested. Their alpha is a girl who took power too soon.”
Rafe felt his jaw clench. Young. The image of that woman amid the smoke, hands slick with blood, flashed again. She hadn’t looked weak then.
“We could take the river,” Joren went on. “Take the hunting grounds on the east ridge. No more begging the council for permission to cross certain game trails. No more arguing over who owns which deer. We could secure Ironclaw’s future for generations.”
A low growl rippled through the listening wolves.
Joren let it build, then lifted a hand.
“But.” The word cracked like a whip. The growling stuttered, then faded. “We are not alone in deciding this. The council of packs holds sway. If we break the treaty without cause, we risk more than Ashridge’s teeth. We risk the elders’ wrath. Sanctions. Exile. No trade. No mates allowed to cross into other territories. Our sons and daughters trapped here forever.”
Silence.
Rafe shifted his weight. He knew enough of the wider politics to understand. Packs that refused to heed the council sometimes found themselves ostracized. No visitors. No medicine traded. No outsiders to bring new blood. Inbreeding could cripple a pack as surely as war.
He caught Reva’s scent before he saw her. Smoke and foxglove, the faint spice of clove. The alpha’s niece moved through the crowd like she belonged there.
Some of the young wolves’ eyes followed her. She was pretty enough, Rafe supposed, in a sharp way. Pale brown skin, a tumble of dark curls cut short on one side, the rest braided with bits of bone and metal. Her mouth tilted like she was constantly amused at a joke no one else heard.
She slipped between two elders and came to stand at Joren’s left shoulder.
“As it happens,” Joren said, inclining his head to her, “we have a… visitor from Ashridge. My niece, Reva, returned from their lands this morning.”
Rafe’s brows rose. That was faster than he’d expected. He hadn’t even realized she’d gone.
Reva bowed to the elders with exaggerated deference, then straightened, eyes bright.
“I bring news,” she said. “And an offer.”
Rafe studied her. She moved with the easy confidence of someone used to being indulged. Her wolf scent was strong, but there was something under it, a faint tang of… other. Old bloodlines, maybe. Ironclaw had long prided itself on marrying strong wolves from outside.
“The Ashridge alpha met with me last night,” Reva said, pacing slowly around the fire. “She plays the part of dutiful leader well. Sad eyes, humble words. Speaks of peace, of how we must ‘heal old wounds together.’”
Her lips curled. A few of the pack snorted.
“Yet.” Reva’s gaze flicked to Joren, then back to the crowd. “They are strengthening their wards along the northern boundary. Doubling patrols near our shared border. Training their young hard enough that I saw pups with bruises on their throats from sparring.”
Murmurs. One of the elders frowned. “Perhaps they fear the same as we do. That the other side will break the truce.”
“Perhaps.” Reva tilted her head. “Or perhaps they are preparing for something. Either way, they are uneasy. And uneasy wolves make mistakes.”
Rafe’s wolf pricked its ears. Tension sang in the space under his ribs. This was dangerous ground. He could almost feel the treaty like a fragile string stretched taut between their lands.
“What offer did they bring?” Harn rasped.
Reva smiled like a cat offered cream.
“They insisted—” she let the word drip with mockery “—that if any of our wolves are injured within their territory during this ‘fragile time,’ their healer will treat them. As a sign of… good faith. To prove they are not like us, so they say.” Her smile sharpened. “They think we are butchers. That we leave the enemy to bleed in the dirt.”
Some of the Ironclaw wolves laughed. Others bristled.
“We do what we must,” Oris snarled. “We don’t coddle those who would slit our throats.”
“And yet,” Reva said lightly, “we might use their… pride. Their oath. A healer bound to treat any who come to her door? Imagine the possibilities.”
A hush dropped over the hollow. Wolves shifted, reoriented. Rafe felt his stomach twist.
Reva held up a hand. “I know what you’re thinking. No, we don’t drag half-dead warriors to their den just for sport. That would be crude. Transparent. But if an opportunity presents itself—if one of ours is wounded on the wrong side of the line—it would be… interesting… to see if their alpha keeps her word. If their healer obeys her oath.”
“You’d risk one of ours on their table?” Elder Mera’s voice cut through the murmurs. Her hair had gone white as bone, but her shoulders were still straight.
Reva shrugged. “Risk is the nature of war. And of peace.” She glanced at Joren. “If they falter, if they turn our wounded away, we have cause before the council to claim they broke the treaty. If they keep their word…” Her eyes gleamed. “We learn how their healer works. How she binds wounds, what herbs she favors. Knowledge is a weapon, too.”
Rafe’s gut knotted. He didn’t like this. Any of it.
He shifted back to human, bones bending, fur receding, until he stood naked at the back of the gathered warriors. No one paid him any mind; nudity was incidental among wolves. He studied Joren’s face.
The alpha looked… pleased.
“We will not orchestrate such a scenario,” Joren said, holding Mera’s gaze. “But we will not avoid it, either. The next patrol along the river will be… extended. We will push the boundary. See how they respond.”
His eyes slid to Rafe.
“Enforcer,” he said.
Rafe’s spine straightened. “Alpha.”
“You will lead,” Joren said. “Take four with you. Test the limits. Do not draw first blood. Do not give them open provocation.” He smiled thinly. “But if they rise to the bait…”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.
Rafe’s heart pounded hard against his ribs. His wolf leaned into the challenge, claws scraping his bones.
“Understood,” he said.
* * *
They left at dusk.
Rafe chose his team carefully: Oris, for all his arrogance, was strong and experienced; Dela, quick and keen-eyed, a good scout; Niko, young but solid; and Lysa, whose nose was better than anyone’s in the pack.
They traveled light, bare-chested, shifts riding just under their skin. The air grew colder as they neared the border. Snow lingered here in shadowed hollows, dirty and crusted.
“Remember,” Rafe said as they slowed at the line of carved stones half-buried in moss. “We go just beyond, no farther. We see who’s watching. We do not start a fight. If they strike first, we defend ourselves and fall back.”
Oris snorted. “What if they’re too scared to strike?”
“Then we turn around and come home,” Rafe said. He didn’t bother to hide the faint edge in his voice. “The alpha wants a test, not a slaughter.”
Lysa’s nostrils flared delicately. “Ashridge patrol passed through here earlier.” She wrinkled her nose. “Female, maybe two males. Scent’s fresh. Couple of hours, no more.”
Dela cocked her head. “Think they saw us coming? They might be watching already.”
“Better give them a show then,” Niko muttered, bouncing lightly on his toes. His shaggy blond hair fell into his eyes. He pushed it back, grinning. “I could use a run.”
Rafe inhaled slowly, centering himself. His wolf paced, restless.
He’d grown up thinking of this line as a wall. Now it seemed more like a thread someone had drawn on the ground and dared both sides not to step over.
He stepped over.
It was a small motion. The earth felt the same under his bare feet. The air had the same bite. But every hair along his arms stood up.
The others followed. The scents shifted subtly. Pine, yes, but under it the faint sweetness of different herbs, the trace of a village that burned different woods for warmth, different flowers planted under their windows.
They moved in human form, weapons strapped to their backs more for show than use. Wolves fought better with teeth and claws. But steel shimmered at their sides, a silent statement.
The trees thinned as they approached the sound of water. The river ran between their lands like a scar, narrow enough to jump in some places, wide and swift in others. Here, it was only a dozen wolf-lengths across, current swift over smooth stones.
They stopped at the bank.
“At least they have decent views,” Dela murmured. On the opposite shore, a low rise led up to a stand of birch. Beyond that, smoke curled up from what must be the edge of Ashridge’s main den cluster.
“Eyes up,” Rafe said. “They could be watching from anywhere.”
Their wolves’ senses strained. Rafe scanned the treeline, the rocks, the water. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
“Left ridge,” Lysa murmured, barely moving her lips. “Two. Maybe three. Scent’s faint but there.”
Rafe didn’t turn his head. He didn’t want to spook them.
“Let’s not be coy,” Oris said under his breath. He lifted his chin and bellowed across the water, voice echoing off the stones. “Ashridge! Enjoying your peace?”
Rafe’s teeth clenched. “Oris—”
“Thought we’d come see your pretty river,” Oris went on, ignoring him. “Make sure it remembers which side belongs to Ironclaw.”
A low growl drifted from the trees opposite. Then a woman stepped out.
She was tall, with a scar down her left cheek, thick dark hair braided back. Leather armor hugged a compact, muscular frame. Her eyes were like polished flint.
Rafe recognized her from glimpses during border talks and, more starkly, from across the battlefield two winters ago.
Ashridge’s alpha. Wren.
Her gaze flicked over them, pausing a heartbeat on Rafe, then back to Oris.
“Your river?” she called back, voice calm. “Funny. Last I checked, the council decided it was shared property.”
“Shared.” Oris spat the word. “We all know who used it first. Your pups paddled in our stream until you decided you wanted it for yourselves.”
“History differs depending on who tells it,” Wren said. She stepped down onto the stones at the riverbank, boots slipping a little. Closer, Rafe could see the tightness at the corners of her mouth. She did not like that they were this far in.
Rafe moved to stand slightly in front of Oris, a silent claim of position.
“Alpha Wren,” he called, voice even. “I’m Rafe. Ironclaw’s enforcer. We’re on a routine patrol. We thought we’d stretch our legs.”
“Beyond the border?” Wren arched a brow. “Bold.”
“We haven’t crossed the river,” Rafe pointed out. “Treaty says the midline is neutral, does it not?”
Wren’s jaw worked. “It says neither side will push more than a stone’s throw past their own markers without warning.”
“We’re barely that,” Oris muttered.
Rafe shot him a quelling look.
“Consider this a… warning,” he said. “We’re close. No harm meant.”
“Your idea of ‘no harm’ and mine differ,” Wren replied. “You tested our boundaries enough two winters ago.”
The air thickened. Old ghosts crowded at the edges of Rafe’s vision. Flames licking thatch. Screams. A boy’s shocked eyes.
“Those were different times,” Rafe said carefully. “We agreed to leave them behind.”
“For now,” Wren said. Her gaze locked on his. “You might want to remind some of your pack that a truce is not a game. If one of you ends up bleeding on our soil because you wanted to ‘stretch your legs,’ our healer will be obliged to patch you up. She won’t thank you for the work.”
Rafe’s pulse ticked faster. “So the stories are true,” he said. “You bind your healer with an oath.”
Wren’s expression shuttered. “Our ways are our own.”
“And yet you made them part of the treaty,” Rafe said. “You insisted we acknowledge that oath. That we send our wounded to her if they cross too deep into your lands.”
A muscle jumped in Wren’s jaw. “We insisted on nothing. We offered. You accepted.”
“Only because the council watched,” Oris muttered. “Soft-hearted fools. Letting healers tend enemy wolves.”
“Be careful, Ironclaw,” Wren said quietly. “Our healer’s patience is long, but not endless. She’ll treat you if you come to her door. But she won’t like it. And I won’t either.”
Rafe studied her. There was more in her words than simple warning. A thread of… something. Protective anger. Weariness.
“I have no wish to burden your healer,” he said. “We have our own methods.”
“Bandages ripped from shirt hems and a bottle of rotgut,” Wren said dryly. “I’ve smelled your healers’ work on the dead.”
Rafe’s wolf bristled. “Our wolves die on their feet in battle. Not whimpering on a table.”
“Lucky them,” Wren snapped. “They miss the pleasure of your bedside manner.”
A few of the Ashridge wolves in the trees behind her snickered.
Rafe couldn’t stop the huff of reluctant amusement in his own chest. Damn her.
He sobered quickly. “We’ve tested enough for today,” he said. “We’ll withdraw. Unless you’d like to invite us for tea.”
“I’d sooner invite foxes into my henhouse,” Wren replied. “Go home, Ironclaw. Teach your pups some respect for lines drawn in blood.”
Rafe inclined his head. He could feel Oris fuming at his side, but he didn’t care. Joren had been clear: test, not tear.
He took a step back.
The arrow sang through the air a heartbeat later.
He barely saw it, a thin whisper of movement at the edge of his vision. His wolf screamed move and he did, but too late. The shaft slammed into his side, just under his ribs, spiraling heat and shock through his torso.
He stumbled, breath exploding out of him. His vision flared white.
“Shit,” someone yelled. Niko? Dela? The world slid.
Another arrow thunked into a tree behind him.
“Hold!” Wren’s voice cracked across the river, sharp as a whip. “Belay that! Whoever loosed that, I want your name!”
Rafe dropped to one knee, hand going to the arrow in his side. The wood was smooth under his fingers, the fletching brushing his palm. Blood gushed hot between his ribs and his hand.
His wolf reared, snarling, pushing against his skin. For a terrifying second, he thought it might burst out uncontrollably. Shifting with an arrow lodged in his torso would tear him worse.
“Rafe!” Dela’s hands were on his shoulders. “Shit, shit, shit—”
“Do not pull it.” His voice sounded strange in his own ears. Far away. “Not yet.”
“Who the fuck—” Oris began.
“Get him back over the line!” Lysa yelled. “We can’t—”
Her words blurred.
The world tilted. The river’s roar grew louder, then fainter, then loud again.
Some part of Rafe’s mind registered Wren on the opposite bank, eyes wide, jaw clenched. She looked… furious. Not triumphant. Not pleased.
“Don’t be idiots,” she shouted. “If you move him like that, you’ll tear him open. You—”
Rafe’s knees buckled. He found himself on the cold stones, the arrow a burning brand in his side. Blood soaked his fingers.
He’d been injured before. Gashes, bites, even a knife between the ribs once, in a tavern fight gone wrong. This felt… different. Deeper. Colder. Like the arrow carried something with it beyond simple steel and wood.
His wolf whined, a sound that echoed oddly in his skull.
“Alpha!” one of the Ashridge wolves called from the trees. “He’s on our soil. The arrow knocked him across.”
Rafe didn’t remember falling forward, but apparently he had. His body lay half-curled on the stones, one hand still in the river. The water ran pink where his blood mixed with it.
Joren’s directive flashed through his mind: If they rise to the bait…
Had they? Or had some idiot on the ridge panicked?
He tried to push himself up. Pain flared white-hot. His arm gave out.
Footsteps pounded near his head. Dela’s face loomed, eyes wide, mouth moving a mile a minute, but he couldn’t catch the words.
“Rafe!”
Another voice. Harsher. Female, but not Ashridge. Reva?
“…proof,” she was saying. “He’s hurt. On their stones. They can’t refuse. Let them show their teeth or their throat.”
Rafe’s vision tunneled.
Above him, the sky was a washed-out gray, clouds like thin wool. A crow wheeled overhead, its call a ragged caw.
He tasted metal and something else. Old pine resin. Smoke.
He thought of his father in the snow. Of the Ashridge boy’s shocked face. Of the healer across the burning square, hands sunk in someone’s chest.
He didn’t expect her hands now.
He expected steel at his neck.
Instead, Wren’s voice cut through the roaring in his ears.
“Get him to their healer,” she snapped. “He bleeds another drop on our stones, I’ll take it as a personal insult. Move!”
Hands grabbed him. Many hands. Rafe grit his teeth as he was lifted, every jostle sending a bolt of agony through his side.
Someone—maybe Dela—swore in his ear. “We’re not leaving you here,” she hissed. “We’ll drag you back if we have to—”
“You drag him, he dies,” Wren snarled. “Your alpha wanted a test? Here it is. Let’s see if we all survive it.”
Rafe tried to snarl at her. To tell her to keep her Ashridge paws off him.
His mouth moved. No sound came.
His world narrowed to the beat of his heart and the fire in his side. The forest blurred past above him, shadows and branches. Voices rose and fell, meaningless noise.
He smelled something new then, under the blood and fear and cold.
It was faint at first. A thread of scent that wound through the haze. Warm. Green. Like crushed herbs and clean skin and something he couldn’t name.
His wolf went still.
The scent grew as they moved, wrapping around him. It stroked his fur on the inside, brushed the back of his teeth. Something in his chest that had been clenched for years eased, fraction by fraction.
There, his wolf said.
Rafe didn’t know what it meant. Didn’t have the breath to ask.
He let the scent pull him through the dark.
He did not expect her hands.
He certainly did not expect that when they touched him, the world would tilt on its axis and something deep in his bones would snap into place with a finality that terrified him more than any wound.
For now, he just bled toward that scent, teeth gritted, as unfamiliar trees arched overhead.
* * *