CHAPTER 2: THE JOURNEY

LYRA'S POV

I wake up sore and cold.

The carriage bumps over rocky ground. My head knocks against the metal wall. For one sweet moment, I do not remember where I am. Then the memory crashes back like a wave of ice water.

My father sold me.

I am going to Shadowfang Pack.

I press my palms against my eyes until I see stars. The tears are gone now. There is nothing left inside me except a hollow, shaking kind of fear.

The carriage is small. There are no windows except the tiny barred one near the top. Moonlight slides through it in thin silver lines. I am not alone. Three other people sit in the shadows across from me. Traders, maybe. Or prisoners like me. I cannot tell.

None of them speak to me. I do not speak to them.

The hours pass like years.

---

By morning, the carriage has joined a larger group. I hear horses and wagons and the low murmur of many voices. The door finally opens. A rough hand tosses me a piece of bread and a cup of water.

"Eat," a guard says. "We have two more days on the road."

I eat. The bread is hard. The water tastes like metal. I eat every crumb.

When the carriage starts moving again, the door stays open. I am allowed to sit near the back and watch the world go by. The guards do not talk to me, but they do not stop me from listening to the other travelers.

That is how I learn about Alpha Kael.

---

A group of warriors rides beside my wagon. They are from a pack called Stone River, and they are heading to Shadowfang for some kind of meeting. Their voices carry in the morning air.

"I heard Kael killed an entire rogue pack by himself," one warrior says. He is young, with bright eyes and a scar on his arm. "Ten rogues. Ripped their throats out with his bare hands. No weapons. No wolves. Just fury."

The second warrior shakes his head. "That is nothing. My cousin lives in Shadowfang territory. He says Kael once fought a mountain bear and won. The bear was three times his size."

"The cursed Alpha," the third one says quietly. "They call him cursed for a reason. His own father tried to kill him when he was twelve. Kael survived. His father did not."

I pull my knees to my chest and listen harder.

But then a woman speaks. She is older, with gray hair and tired eyes. She sits on a horse near the back of the group. Her clothes mark her as a healer.

"You children know nothing," she says. "Alpha Kael is not the monster. The curse is the monster."

The young warrior frowns. "What curse?"

The healer looks at the road ahead. Her face is dark. "Every woman chosen to become his Luna has died. Three women in ten years. All of them beautiful. All of them strong. All of them dead within a month of the ceremony."

My blood turns cold.

"Dead how?" the second warrior asks.

"No one knows. Their bodies are found with no marks. No poison. No struggle. They simply... stop breathing." The healer crosses herself. "The pack says the curse follows him. Kills anyone he loves."

The warriors go quiet.

I cannot breathe.

I am being sent to this man. This cursed Alpha who watches his Lunas die. My father knows this. He knows, and he sent me anyway.

Pray the cursed Alpha kills you quickly.

Now I understand what my father meant.

---

But as the day goes on, I hear other stories. Different stories. And they do not match.

A merchant joins the group around noon. He has traveled to Shadowfang many times. He sells wool and wine and seems afraid of nothing.

"Kael is harsh but fair," the merchant says when someone mentions the cursed Alpha. "I have done business with him for five years. He has never cheated me. Never raised his voice. He is quiet. Cold, maybe. But not cruel."

"Then why do they call him cursed?" I ask before I can stop myself.

The merchant looks at me. His eyes are kind. That almost makes me cry.

"Because he is different," the merchant says. "Because he does not bow to the other Alphas. Because he keeps Shadowfang closed to strangers. People fear what they do not understand."

The young warrior snorts. "He killed ten rogues with his bare hands."

"Aye," the merchant agrees. "And those rogues had murdered twenty innocent wolves the week before. Women. Children. Elderly. Kael hunted them down so no one else would have to."

I stare at my hands. They are still red and cracked from scrubbing floors. My father's floors. The floors of a man who sold his own daughter.

Maybe monsters come in different shapes.

Some of them have cold eyes and empty faces. Some of them stand in packhouses and call you the reason their mate is dead.

And some of them, maybe, are not monsters at all. Just stories. Just fear.

But I do not know which story is true.

And that might be the scariest part.

---

Night falls.

The group makes camp in a valley between two mountains. The guards give me more bread and a blanket. I curl up in the corner of the wagon and try to sleep.

I cannot.

The stories circle in my head like angry bees.

He killed ten rogues with his bare hands.

Every Luna he has chosen died.

He is cold, maybe. But not cruel.

Pray he kills you quickly.

Which one is real? Is Alpha Kael a monster? A cursed man? A protector? Or all three?

And does it matter? I am still being delivered to him like a package. I still have no choice. I am still nothing but payment for a debt I did not create.

I fall asleep with tears on my face and questions in my heart.

---

The third morning comes too fast.

The carriage stops. The guards shout. Horses snort and stomp. I hear a sound like thunder, but it does not stop. It goes on and on.

Then I realize.

It is not thunder.

It is water. A river. A huge one.

I crawl to the open door and look out.

My breath leaves my body.

The mountains rise on both sides of us, dark and ancient. Between them, carved into the stone itself, sits a fortress. Black walls. Tall towers. Iron gates that look like teeth. The river crashes below it, white and wild, as if trying to knock it down.

But the fortress stands.

It has stood for a hundred years. Maybe longer.

Shadowfang Pack's home.

The wagon doors swing open all the way. A guard reaches for me.

"Out," he says. "We are here."

I step down onto cold ground. My legs shake. My heart pounds so hard I think it might break my ribs.

The fortress looms above me. Dark windows stare down like empty eyes. Somewhere inside those walls, Alpha Kael is waiting.

What kind of Alpha lives in a place like this?

I am about to find out.