Chapter 4

Asher’s POV

“The moon turned gold over three states, Alpha,” said Councilor Vane. “I would say that’s a matter for the council.”

I stood at the head of the long stone table in the Ironwood pack house with my hands behind my back and my jaw locked. It was three in the morning. The council chamber smelled of cold ashes and old cedar. Six council members sat along the sides, gray and watchful, in high-backed chairs that had belonged to their fathers.

Reuben Vane sat nearest me.

He was sixty, tall, with a neat silver beard and mild blue eyes. He wore a cardigan. He looked like a man who might teach you to fish. In my whole life I had never seen him raise his voice, and I had never once trusted him.

“It’s a lunar event,” I said. “It will pass.”

“It’s a Hearth.”

Nobody in the room breathed.

“That is a children’s story,” I said.

“Is it?” Vane folded his hands. “Your grandfather told it well. When a true mate bond breaks and the moon feels pity, she sends a Hearth Wolf into the world. A healer whose hands can mend a pack. Whose food can knit a wound. Whose power belongs,” he smiled, “to the oldest territory in the Northwest.”

“To whoever she chooses.”

“To Ironwood. By the Charter of Fifteen Ninety-Three.” He tapped the table. “Section four, if you’d care to read it.”

I didn’t need to read it. My grandfather made me memorize the Charter when I was nine. Section four said a Hearth Wolf, once revealed, would be brought to the great pack for safekeeping.

Safekeeping. Ari growled in my chest. It was the politest word for a cage.

“I sent Micah an hour ago,” Vane went on. “Two warriors, a car, a letter. They’ll bring Miss Bennett to us by breakfast. It’s very civil. She’ll be well cared for.”

The room tilted.

“You sent my Beta.”

“You weren’t answering your phone.”

“You sent my Beta to fetch the girl I just rejected.”

“Yes. I thought it fitting.” Vane’s eyes were kind and cold as lake water. “She’s a treasure, Asher. It would be criminal to leave her to her family. They’ve been treating her like a stray dog.”

Anger rushed through me so fast, my vision went white at the edges. I gripped the back of the chair. The silver wound flared under my coat, a long line of fire down my ribs. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.

“Alpha?” one of the older council members asked. “Are you unwell?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re gray,” said Vane gently. “You should rest.”

I could have shouted. I could have thrown the table. I could have said, She’s mine, and made every person in that room understand what it meant.

And Reuben Vane would have smiled, and picked up the phone, and had her dead by the weekend.

I let go of the chair.

“She comes as a guest,” I said. “A healer. Under my protection. She has her own rooms, her own kitchen, and no council member so much as speaks to her without my leave.”

“Of course.”

“If anyone touches her, I will take it as a challenge.”

“Of course,” said Vane. “How could it be otherwise?”

I looked around the table. Six faces. Six carefully blank stares. Somewhere in this room sat the hand that had put silver into my side, and I did not know whose it was.

“This meeting is over,” I said.

~

Ari didn’t stop howling until I reached the roof.

I climbed the back stairs two at a time and shoved through the door into the cold. Wind whipped my hair. The moon was still gold, huge and low over the black tops of the pines. From up here, the whole Ironwood territory lay spread out like a map. A hundred and fifty houses. The training grounds. The river.

Everything I owned. Everything I’d sworn to keep safe.

I leaned on the stone wall and pressed my hand to my side. It came away dark.

Why did you let them take her? Ari snarled.

“You know why.”

You rejected her. You reject her, and then you send her to the wolves.

“I didn’t send her. Vane did.”

You let him.

“If I had said no, he’d have known how much she matters. She’d be a target, not a guest.”

She IS a target.

“Not if I’m close.”

Ari went quiet. Then, in a low rumble that hurt worse than the shouting, he said, Then you’d better be close, Asher.

I closed my eyes. A drop of blood ran down my wrist and dripped off my finger onto the stone.

Behind me, the roof door creaked.

“You shouldn’t be up here alone,” said a woman’s voice.

I turned.

Leah Vane stood in the doorway with a blanket over one arm. Twenty-five. Dark hair in a plain braid, gray eyes, a plain gray dress. Her father’s daughter. She’d been my friend when we were kids, until the day the council started arranging us like furniture.

“Go to bed, Leah.”

“I brought you a blanket.”

“I’m not cold.”

“You’re bleeding.” She crossed the roof without hesitation and took my hand. She pulled a clean handkerchief from her sleeve and wrapped it around my wrist, tight and neat. Her fingers were steady. “You’ve been bleeding for a month. Don’t argue. I’ve watched you hide it.”

I froze.

“Who told you?”

“Nobody.” She tied the knot. “I just look. Nobody else does.”

“Leah...”

“I’m not here to trap you.” She lifted her eyes. They were very clear. “I don’t want to marry you, Asher. I never did. My father wants a wedding, and I want to be a vet. I told him so twice, and he didn’t hear me. I’d rather live in a shed.”

My chest unclenched, just a little. “Then why are you here?”

“Because I heard what he said in the hall tonight.” Her voice dropped. “He thinks the Hearth Wolf will heal you. And he thinks that once she has, she’ll be very easy to remove.”

My blood turned to ice.

“He said that.”

“Not in those words.” She glanced at the door. “But I’ve known my father all my life. He never brings a treasure into the house unless he means to break it.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Because I saw your face when you rejected her.” She let go of my hand. “You looked like a man throwing himself off a cliff. That’s not what a man looks like when he doesn’t care.”

I couldn’t speak.

Leah backed away toward the door. Halfway there she stopped, one hand on the frame, and glanced over her shoulder. The gold light lay across her face and made her look much older than twenty-five.

“There’s one more thing,” she said.

“What?”

“You think the silver came from a rogue. A stray blade in a fight.” She shook her head slowly. “It didn’t, Asher. I’ve seen the wound. The cut is too clean. The poison is too deep. That blade was made for you, and it came from inside this house.”

The door closed behind her.

I stood alone on the roof with the blood drying on my wrist and the moon bright over my head, and I understood, for the first time, that I had just sent the only woman my wolf would ever love into a house where somebody was already trying to kill me.