CHAPTER FIVE

The door shut, and the room emptied.

I lay on a narrow cot in a small stone chamber, my hands wrapped in linen, a blanket pulled to my chin. A bear pelt covered the foot of the bed. A fire cracked in the corner, and the whole room smelled of pine resin and smoke. Two guards stood outside the door. The room was warm, and I was still shaking.

Ronan sat on a wooden chair across from me. The knife lay across his knee. He had not lifted it. He had not put it away either.

"My name is Lyra," I said. There was no point in lying now. "Lyra Moonstone."

"I know what you are." He said it slowly. "My grandfather told stories about your family. The Moonstone Queens. Wolves who healed with a touch and made kings kneel. He said the Alphas hunted them all down."

"I don't know anything about queens." My throat burned. "I'm a healer. That's all I've ever been."

"That's not all you are."

"My father…"

"Is alive." He said it flatly. "My healer is working on him. The poison is Frost wolfsbane mixed with something I have never smelled. An hour later at my gate, and he'd be dead."

I shut my eyes. Relief hit so hard I nearly sobbed. I pressed my bandaged hand over my mouth.

"Why are you helping us?" I whispered. "You hate Draven."

"I do." His mouth twisted. "But I hate wasted life more. And I heard the moon, Lyra. Every pack in the north heard it. It turned silver last night, and the howling lasted until dawn. Then a woman with a Moonstone mark stumbles out of Kael Draven's gate."

"I never wanted…"

"What did you do to him?"

"I broke our bond."

I had not meant to say it. The words fell out of me. Ronan went still.

"You were his mate."

"His secret mate." Something sour rose in my throat. "For two years. He told me the other Alphas would laugh at him. Then he crowned another woman and told his whole pack I'd given them nothing."

For a long time, he said nothing. The fire popped. The knife on his knee turned a quarter inch. Then he picked it up and slid it back into its sheath.

"He's a bigger fool than I thought," Ronan said.

"I'm not here to start a war."

"Whether you want one or not, you've already lit the fuse." He leaned forward. His green eyes were steady and tired. "Listen to me. A wolf who can break a bond is not just a healer. Do you understand? Most Alphas in this territory hold their packs by force. 

The Iron Oath. A leash. Some have held wolves for thirty years. If they learn what you can do, they won't ask you to heal them. They'll cage you and use you. Or kill you so no one else can."

I stared at him. "I broke one bond. By accident."

"Then imagine what happens when you do it on purpose."

I had no answer. My hands began to tremble again, and I tucked them under the blanket. He saw. He reached out, slowly, as if I were a skittish horse, and pulled the blanket up over my shoulder. His knuckles brushed my cheek. They were rough and warm, and I felt that single touch all the way down to my cold feet.

He drew his hand back at once.

"I can hide you," he said, his voice a little rougher. "Here, under another name, as a herb-woman. I'll say you came from the south. No one in my pack will question it. In return, you help me treat the sickness. Not Draven's cure. The real one."

"You want my formula."

"I want the truth about Silver Rot." His voice dropped. "My brother died of it nine years ago. Kael's father died of it. Selene Frost's cure does nothing. Her own family is dying, too. I've seen it with my own eyes. Somebody is lying to every Alpha in the north, and I think you know who."

I did not answer. I did not know. But a small cold thought turned over in my mind. Selene had drained my father's blood into a copper bowl. She had needed Moonstone blood. Why?

"I'll do it," I said. "Until my father is well."

"And after?"

"After, we'll see."

He nodded once. It was not a promise, and I did not mistake it for one. It was a truce, the kind two wounded animals make at a river's edge.

He stood. At the door he stopped, his hand on the frame. "You're braver than you look, Lyra Moonstone."

"I wasn't brave," I said. "I was just tired of being small."

For a heartbeat, something close to a smile touched his mouth. Then he was gone.

I lay still for a long time. The fire sank to coals. The wind rattled the shutters. I did not know if I could trust him. I knew only that his hands had been gentle when he carried my father.

Near dawn, a girl tapped at the door and whispered, "Your father is awake. He's asking for you."

I limped down the hall, dragging one shoulder along the wall, to a small room at the end. Garrick Moonstone lay under a heap of furs, his face pale, his eyes open. The black veins on his neck had faded to gray. When he saw me, tears ran down into his white beard.

"Papa." I dropped beside the bed and took his hand. "It's over. We're safe."

"Lyra." His voice was a thread. "Listen. There isn't much time."

"Rest. You can tell me later."

"No. Later, they will come." His grip was weak, but he held on like a drowning man. "Your mother. Lyra, she did not die in the fire."

My heart stopped.

"The Frosts took her," he whispered. "Maren Frost came for her that night. I've lied to you for fifteen years to keep you alive. She's still alive, and he is keeping her that way, because she is the only one who knows how to…"

His eyes rolled white. His hand went slack. The healer sprinted in and shoved me aside, shouting for water, for herbs, for silence.

I knelt on the floor, shaking, and looked up.

Ronan stood in the doorway. His face had gone gray. He had heard every word.

"Lyra," he said softly. "I think you and I need to talk about the Frosts."

Behind him, a horn blasted from the outer wall. Then another. Then ten.

A guard burst in, gasping. "Alpha! Draven riders at the border. Two hundred of them. Kael Draven rides at the front, and he's demanding you hand over his mate."

I did not move. I could not. I had no mate. I had no home. I had a mother who was alive, a father who might never wake, and an enemy Alpha staring at me as if I were the key to everything.

And out in the snow, the man who had called me no one was shouting my name. For the first time, he sounded like he was begging.