X1

"No," I said, meeting Alpha Rowan’s gaze with a steadiness I didn't feel. "I’m not signing the Great Ledger. I am not being traded to Kael Nightfang like a piece of territory."

My parents stared at me, their faces like carved granite in the firelight of the Alpha’s study.

"Don't be a brat, Acacik," my mother, Luna Elara, said with a sharp, dismissive laugh. "This isn't a whim. You’ve been promised to the Nightfang bloodline since your first shift."

"I never agreed to that," I shot back. "It was a pack legend, the kind of nonsense the Elders drone on about after too much fermented honey. 'The storm and the night must unite to steady the borders.' I won’t be bound to a man I haven’t seen in a decade."

"You remember him perfectly well," my mother said, her voice losing its edge and turning cold.

"I was ten. He was sixteen and already a tyrant. He spent the entire Summer Solstice Rite making sure I knew I was beneath him. He was arrogant, cruel, and he took pleasure in reminding me how 'frail' my magic seemed compared to his."

He called me Twig.

The memory still tasted like ash. I had been a lanky, awkward pup, all knees and elbows. He had cornered me behind the ancestral shrines, his voice already dropping into an Alpha’s growl, and told me I looked like a twig that would snap under the weight of a real mate.

"You have to understand the bigger picture," my mother tried again.

My father’s shoulders bunched, his scent turning acrid with suppressed dominance. Alphas aren't used to being told 'no,' especially by their own heirs. Sons were supposed to be the backbone of the pack’s legacy.

"It was a blood-oath between our house and the late Alpha Nightfang," my father grunted. "It has secured our northern border for twenty years."

"Then find another way to secure it, Dad. Why did I spend my youth training with the elite Sentinels if I was just meant to be a political bargaining chip? Why am I leading the scouting patrols if my life is already forfeit?"

"The patrols were to build your standing," my mother said, gesturing dismissively. "Kael couldn't mate with a pup who hadn't proven his mettle in the woods. And your formal introduction was delayed by the Great Hunt and your recovery from that silver-burn." She looked at me as if the scar on my ribs was a personal insult to her decorating scheme. "It is vital you enter the Nightfang stronghold as a prize, not a burden."

"I don't care about the stronghold," I said, my voice rising. "If he wants me so badly, where is he? Why isn't he here facing me?"

"Kael is twenty-six now. He has been at the High Council City negotiating the new territorial treaties," my father explained, forced to be patient. "When his father passed last moon, he inherited a fractured pack. He’s been putting down rebellions and securing the Nightfang borders."

"He wrote to confirm he is coming to claim you in three weeks," my mother added. "The bonding ceremony will be held at the Winter Solstice."

"And no one thought to ask me?"

"There is no need to ask," my father said, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating in the floorboards. "It is settled."

"Not by me."

My father’s face turned a dangerous shade of crimson. I dug my heels into the rug. He had never struck me, but the sheer pressure of his Alpha aura was enough to make a lesser wolf drop to their knees.

"If you refuse Kael," my mother said, her voice dangerously quiet, "you are of no use to this bloodline. In the old days, disobedient heirs were stripped of their names and cast into the Wilds."

I felt a cold knot of dread. They weren't kidding. This wasn't a lecture; it was an ultimatum.

"If you continue this defiance," my father stated, "your rank is stripped. You will be sent to the Yorclaw Highlands to serve as a dry-nurse and attendant to Elder Matriarch Selene Vale."

"Elder Selene?" I breathed.

She was a nightmare—a twice-widowed ancient who lived in a fortress of ice and bitterness. She treated her attendants like thralls and her family like enemies.

"Selene’s last assistant fled into the woods three days ago," my mother said. "I suspect after a month of scrubbing her floors and enduring her temper in the permafrost, the Nightfang bed will look like a luxury you were a fool to pass up."

"What’s it going to be?" my father asked. "Accept the bond, or leave for Valeheart Manor at dawn."

I lifted my chin, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "Prepare the carriage. I’m going to the Highlands."

The next morning, the Silverfang District disappeared behind a veil of gray mist. I wasn't being thrown into a cage, but as the heavy iron gates of our estate latched shut, it felt like a prison sentence all the same.

I sat in the back of the armored transport, flanked by two of my father’s most loyal Enforcers. Across from me sat Maera, my mother’s assistant. She looked at me with a mix of pity and disbelief.

I checked the small satchel at my side. I had a few silver coins, a hunting knife, and the clothes on my back. My mother had confiscated my ceremonial signet and my refined furs, claiming I "wouldn't need the trappings of a prince where I was going."

I had managed to hide a small whetstone and a map of the Northern Wilds in the lining of my coat.

I pulled it out now, tracing the jagged line of the Northern Hunt Path. We were heading past the Blackwood Thicket, through the Ironclaw Peaks, and straight into the heart of the Yorclaw Highlands. It was a wasteland of snow and ancient, hungry things.

But as I looked at the map, I didn't see a route to my exile. I saw a way out. If I could survive Selene Vale, I could survive the Wilds. I just had to make sure Kael Nightfang never found me.