เข้าสู่ระบบ[Eileen's POV]Dust sifted down from the ceiling while I was still deciding whether the thudding overhead was thunder. Then it came again. Six heavy blows before a crack like a tree coming down rolled through the floor.”“That’s the gate,” I whispered, palm flat against my stomach. “That’s your father, sweetheart. He’s knocking.”A guard ran in with a ring of keys, sweat running down both temples."Get up.""What's happening up there?""Nothing. Lucian wants you moved.""That was the gate. I counted six.""Six hits." His voice had gone thin. "My brother's on that wall, and they broke it in six hits.""What's his name?""Why?""Because if I get the chance, I'll ask Alaric to spare him.""You won't get the chance.""Then it costs you nothing to tell me.""...Tomas.""Tomas," I said. "I'll remember.""Shut up and hold still.""Leave the chains on," Selena said from the corridor. She stopped outside the bars with a lantern, her hair coming loose from its pins. "Lucian wants her on the wal
[Alaric's POV]The horn was still sounding from Lucian's wall when the first arrows came down, and we were already halfway across the open ground with shafts thudding into shields on every side of me."They heard us," Kade said, tilting his shield over his head."They were always going to.""Roth's going to ask why we didn't wait for the first light.""Roth already knows why.I stood on that ridge all night with that letter in my hand. I’m done waiting.”"You gave it to Roth to keep.""So I'd stop reading it. It didn't work.""That letter was written to make you do exactly this.""I know what it was written for.""Then you know he's counting on you going in angry and careless.""Let him think it worked. I'd rather walk into his trap than leave her in it another hour.""And if we're too late?""Don't.""Someone has to ask it, Alaric.""Then someone can ask it after. You left Lumi behind a locked gate with boot prints outside it, and you rode here anyway. Don't tell me you don't understa
[Selena's POV]I counted the campfires twice from the east tower, certain I'd miscounted the first time, and got the same number both times.There were too many fires. Too many men. Lucian had badly misjudged what taking Eileen would cost us.I’d expected Alaric to come angry. Maybe he’d send a force to hit us and leave. I hadn’t expected an entire army.. I hadn't expected an entire valley ringed with tents by the second night, South Pack banners mixed in among the North Pack ones like the two sides had forgotten they'd ever been anything but allies.The wind carried the smell of their cook fires all the way up to the tower, faint but unmistakable, and I could smell their fires from the tower. They were close. An army close enough to smell was an army close enough to reach the walls sooner than any of us had planned for.I found Lucian in the war room, still awake despite the hour, staring at a map he stopped reading. A single candle burned low beside him, wax pooling unevenly, the onl
[Alaric's POV]The stronghold sat at the bottom of a shallow valley, and from the ridge where we'd made camp I could see Lucian's forces arrayed along the wall like they'd been waiting for us specifically, which they probably had. Torches burned along the battlements even in the last of the daylight, more of them than a stronghold this size should reasonably need, and I understood without anyone telling me that they wanted us to see exactly how many men stood behind those walls."Bloodhowl territory," Roth said, standing beside me with a map he no longer needed to check. "Ugly name for an ugly piece of land.""Fitting, then.""Our numbers still favor us, my lord, even counting everything we can see from here. Three to two, maybe better once the South Pack riders finish setting up on the eastern flank.""Numbers don't win a siege by themselves.""No. But they help."Movement caught my eye further down the ridge, a rider pushing his horse harder than the terrain really allowed, and I re
[Kade's POV]Marta had just set a second helping of stew in front of me when the dogs started barking down by the gate, sharp and frantic, the kind of bark that meant a stranger rather than a rabbit in the hedges."Rider," Hollis said, already on his feet, hand going to the knife at his belt out of habit more than actual worry. Nobody had bothered us in the eleven days we'd been here. That was sort of the point of the place.Eleven days of quiet had made me soft, apparently. My first thought wasn’t danger. It was that Marta’s stew was getting cold.I got to the gate before Lumi did, mostly because she'd been elbow deep in bread dough and I hadn't. The rider was young, mud to his knees, his horse blowing hard enough that it had clearly been pushed the whole way without rest."Message for Kade," he managed, between breaths. "From the Alpha. Direct orders reach you and no one else.""Give it here."He handed over a sealed letter, and I broke it open right there at the gate instead of wai
[Eileen's POV]I'd stopped counting the meals somewhere around the sixth one.Thin broth, a heel of bread hard enough to hurt my jaw, and water that tasted faintly of the bucket it came in. Whoever decided what prisoners ate here either didn’t know I was pregnant or didn’t care. My stomach growled loud enough to embarrass me in the silence. I pressed a hand against it anyway, feeling for movement, and got a small answering shove against my palm that made me let out a breath. "Still stubborn," I said quietly. "Good. Stay that way."My legs were weaker than I’d admitted, there was no one here to pretend for anyway. Standing took effort now, walking the four steps the chain allowed left me lightheaded if I did it too fast. I’d started moving less, saving my strength for when I actually needed it.The door at the end of the corridor opened before I'd finished the sentence, and I recognized the walk before I saw the face. Heavier steps than Lucian's, less graceful than Selena's, a man wh







