chapter 3

The Montana Alpha stood at the border gate like a man who thought he owned the ground beneath it.

He was built like a barn door, gray at the temples, with a jaw that had never once been told no. Behind him, forty wolves in human skin shifted restlessly, muttering, their eyes sliding toward the royal guards lining the wall. The air smelled of sweat and old grudges.

Bryce walked through the gate alone.

He didn't hurry. He let the silence stretch until the muttering behind Montana died completely, and only then did he stop, close enough to see the vein ticking in the older man's temple.

"Montana."

"Your Majesty." The bow was stiff and brief. "I'm told my daughter crossed your border. I've come to take her home."

"Your daughter."

"Lillo. Eighteen years old and sharp as a splinter." Montana's mouth thinned. "She's been a headache since the day she could walk."

Bryce folded his arms. Somewhere deep in his chest, his wolf lifted its head and listened. "Why did she leave in the first place?"

"The girl likes trouble. Always has." Montana waved a hand, as if brushing off a fly. "She needs to come home and prepare for her wedding."

The morning went very still.

"Wedding," Bryce said.

"Her marriage. It's all arranged."

"Marriage to whom?"

"Damien Domenico." Montana said the name with relish, the way a man mentions a very expensive car. "She turned eighteen and still hasn't found a mate. So it's my duty as her father to see her married to a wealthy, respected man, and Damien is exactly that."

Bryce's voice came out low and level, which was far more dangerous than a growl. "She isn't going back. Not to a marriage she was forced into."

"That is between me and my daughter." Montana lifted his chin. "The arrangements have already been made."

"Then unmake them. Don't you have another daughter? A niece? A cousin?" Bryce stepped closer. "I don't care who. Send someone else to stand in her place."

Montana actually laughed, short and ugly. "Give any of my blood to that man? Never. I wouldn't do that to a dog." He spread his hands. "But Lillo? She's a perfect match for him."

On the wall, a guard drew a slow breath through his teeth.

Bryce didn't move. "You wouldn't give any other girl to him," he said softly, "but she's fine."

"She's useful. They are more alike and suited to each other."

That was the word that did it. Something ancient and furious stirred in Bryce's chest, and the air around him seemed to tighten like a drawn bow.

"Lillo is not going anywhere," he said. "She's my mate."

The silence that followed was total.

Montana's face went slack, then gray. Behind him, a ripple of whispers ran through the forty wolves like wind through dry grass. The king's mate. The runaway. Her?

"That's impossible," Montana breathed. "That girl couldn't possibly..."

"The moon disagrees."

Montana's eyes darted from Bryce's face to the guards, to the gate, to the ridge beyond it, where a thin smear of smoke still stained the morning sky. He wet his lips. When he spoke again, the swagger had crept back in, but it was thinner now, like a coat worn over a fever.

"With respect, my king, that girl is trouble. I don't think you can contain her. She'll cause trouble in your palace, I promise you that. The best option, the kindest option, is to let me take her back home."

Bryce looked at him for a long moment.

"I don't think you understand what I'm saying here, Montana." Every word fell like a stone into a well. "Lillo is not going to live with you. She is my mate."

Montana shifted his weight. "Then, well. There are ways, aren't there? You could break the bond or something. Sever it. It's been done."

A muscle jumped in Bryce's jaw.

"Do you think she would survive breaking the bond?"

Montana said nothing.

"And why would I do that?" Bryce's voice dropped lower still. "Why would I break the bond? Give me one reason."

"Because she's trouble, Your Majesty." Montana tried to sound reasonable and landed somewhere near desperate. "And you can't afford to have her. A king can't afford that kind of chaos in his house."

The temperature at the gate seemed to drop ten degrees. Several of the Montana wolves took an involuntary step back. On the wall, the royal guards straightened, hands drifting to their weapons.

"Are you saying," Bryce said, very quietly, "that I cannot handle my own mate, Montana?"

Montana went white. "No. No, Your Majesty, I'm sorry. That is not what I meant." The words tumbled out fast now. "I'm only saying she can't be contained. She's a rebel. She always has been. She doesn't follow rules, she doesn't follow orders, she doesn't..." He stopped, swallowed, and glanced at the ridge one more time. "She's a rebel, that's all."

Bryce noticed the glance. He noticed everything. He filed it away carefully, the way a hunter files away a track in the mud, and kept his face perfectly still.

"Here is what is going to happen," he said. "You are going to turn around. You are going to take your forty wolves and walk them off my border. And you are going to tell Damien Domenico that the wedding is canceled."

"Majesty, the arrangements—"

"Are canceled." Bryce didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to. "If I find one Montana wolf on my side of that line again, I will not send a polite message first."

For a long moment, nobody breathed.

Then Montana bowed, lower this time, and so stiffly that it looked like it hurt. He turned and snapped his fingers, and the pack fell in behind him, a slow gray tide receding down the road. Only once, at the bend, did Montana look back. It wasn't at Bryce. It was at the palace on the hill.

Bryce stood at the gate until the last wolf was gone.

Then, without turning around, he said, "You can come down now, Lillo."

High above him, on the east balcony where the wind carried every word up the hill, a girl in a borrowed sweater went very, very still.