Chapter Two

Lily’s POV

I squinted my eyes before fully opening them. The light hurt.

I was on a cold dirt floor in a small tent that smelled like leather and old blood. Not a room. A prison tent. My hands were not bound, but my chest was on fire.

"I winced in pain and clutched at my injured chest. The bandage there was rough, hastily wrapped right over my tunic. Someone had just pressed cloth to stop the bleeding in the field, they hadn’t even cut the fabric. The smell of yarrow and cheap linen was strong, but underneath it I could still smell my own blood. Whoever did it hadn’t bothered to look, they thought I was a boy."

I looked around. I was the only one here. A single oil lamp hung from the center pole. The walls were thick canvas, staked into the sand.

Where the hell did they keep Mason and the rest of the caravan, I thought. My wolf paced anxiously inside me, whining for her packmates. I could not scent them anywhere.

I forced myself to stand up, using the tent pole for support. My legs shook. I limped to the small barred window of the prison and looked out.

It was dusk. The Moonlit Whisper camp stretched for what looked like miles. Hundreds of black war tents, cookfires burning, warriors moving in patrols. Their armor was dark, their wolves close to the surface. I could hear low growls and the clink of swords being sharpened. The air smelled like smoke, horses, and alpha males.

This was not a border patrol. This was an army.

I sat back down on the cold floor, my back against the pole. I thought about my father’s words before I left. Tears streamed down my face before I could stop them. I wiped them angrily.

I am definitely not afraid of death, but I fear what the Alpha King of our pack will do to my family if we fail to make that crossbow. He would strip my father of his title. He would give our weapon house to my uncle.

My wolf snarled at the thought, protective of our bloodline.

I heard footsteps coming toward my tent long before the flap opened. Heavy boots on sand. Confident. Unhurried. My nose caught his scent before I saw him, pine and snow and blood. The Alpha who shot me.

Someone opened the tent flap. It was the guy from earlier just like I thought. He ducked inside, his braided brown hair catching the lamplight. He held a iron key in his hand and tossed it on the floor in front of me. It clinked against the dirt.

“Hey. Come out,” he said. His voice was calm, like he was calling a dog.

I rolled my eyes at him and struggled to get up due to my chest injury. My wolf bristled at his tone. I bent down, picked up the key from the floor, and launched it straight at his face.

He caught it midair without looking. Then in one fast move he twisted my wrist and pushed me back hard against the prison door, deliberately pressing his thumb right into the injured area on my chest, over the bandage.

I yelled in pain, my knees buckling. My wolf yelped inside me.

He smirked, leaning in close. With his free hand he grabbed the front of my tunic and ripped it open, just enough to check the wound. The binding around my chest shifted.

He froze. His grey eyes dropped. He saw the curve of my breast under the cloth.

“You are a woman,” he said, his voice low with confusion and surprise. He was staring at my body, not with lust, but with calculation. His nostrils flared slightly, scenting me. I knew he could smell the difference now, the softer scent under the blood and sweat.

Just then someone spoke up outside the tent. “My Lord, I have something to report to you.”

He did not look away from me. “Don’t come in. I will come meet you myself,” he told the person outside. Then, almost gently, he fixed my tunic that he had loosened, pulling the fabric back over my skin.

I was supposed to feel embarrassed that a male who isn’t my mate just saw my body. Instead I felt nothing. No shame, no heat. Just a strange stillness. That was so strange to me. My wolf should have been snarling at the exposure. Instead she was quiet, watching him.

“Where is Mason and the members of my pack?” I asked him coldly, pushing his hand away.

He straightened to his full height. “Using that tone against me will only get you killed.”

“Fuck you,” I said, my voice shaking from pain and anger. “Answer my goddamn question.”

He leaned down so his face was level with mine. “I killed them all. Are you satisfied?” he yelled, his alpha voice rolling over me, making my wolf want to submit. I fought it. “I really have little patience for a stubborn bitch like you, but for some reason I don’t want to kill you yet. At least not before I gather all the information about the ways you make your weapons at Red Moon pack.”

I refused to believe that Mason and the rest are dead. I shook my head vigorously and hit at his chest with my fists, weak from the wound.

He caught both my hands angrily in one of his. His grip was iron. “I will send the wolf doctor to treat you,” he said, his voice turning cold again. “You are still so important to me and my pack.”

He turned to leave but I drew him back by grabbing his cloak. The heavy fabric shifted off his shoulder, and that’s when I saw it.

He had a big tattoo running up from his chest, over his collarbone, down to the right side of his neck. No, not a tattoo. A birthmark. Dark ink under the skin. The drawing was a wolf and a dragon, entwined, hugging each other, their tails forming a circle.

My blood went cold.

“Daron,” I whispered in my head.

I wasn’t kidnapped by just a normal elder or warrior of the Moonlit Whisper pack. I was taken by their most powerful wolf born in all the wolf continent, and their former Alpha King son. The one born with the mark of the century, the Wolf Lord and Dragon Lord as a birthmark, just like my father had told me a while back.

I was pushed out of my thought when he smacked my hands away from his cloak.

“My patience is limited and you keep testing it,” he said harshly, his grey eyes flashing with his wolf. “One more mistake and you will be buried under the desert sands, understand?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and went out of the prison tent, the flap falling shut behind him.

I fell to my knees on the cold dirt, breathing hard. The pain in my chest was nothing compared to the fear clawing up my throat.

I really can’t afford to be weak now. Knowing this is Daron, I know he’s ruthless enough to kill Mason and the rest of my pack without blinking. He is the reason the border is in chaos.

My wolf whimpered, but then pushed forward, angry. We need to survive. We need to heal.

I pressed my hand over my bandage and focused. I could feel my wolf trying to knit the wound closed, slow because the arrow had been near my heart.

I heard footsteps again, lighter this time. The scent of herbs and clean linen.

The wolf doctor was coming.

I lifted my head and wiped my tears. I need to find a way when the doctor comes to see me. I need to get a message out, find Mason, and figure out why Daron, the most dangerous Alpha alive, looked at my chest like he recognized something.