Chapter 1: Offered in Blood

The Lycan King puts his mouth on my throat in front of his whole court, and my body burns instead of freezing. Blood from my split lip smears his lips.

I am Aiden Hart, eighteen years old, traded by my own father for three bags of wheat and sent here to die.

The great hall is made of black ice and smoke. Wolves in white furs line the walls and laugh, and one shouts, "Human whore."

My knees hit the floor hard, and pain shoots up my legs. The iron collar around my neck rattles with the chain the guard holds.

The king is huge, with black hair and a scar on his cheek, and his gold eyes look bored. He looks at me like I am a toy he will break.

"Your Majesty," the guard says, "the human tribute." The King does not answer. He steps down from his throne and grabs my chin.

His thumb wipes the blood from my lip, and he tastes it. His eyes flash white, and a growl rolls out of his chest.

Fire rips through my ribs, hot and sharp, and my heart slams once and then beats in time with his. I gasp and grab my shirt.

He jerks back like I shocked him. His claws dig into his own throne, and the black wood cracks loud.

Every wolf goes still because they smell it too. The mate bond.

Humans are not supposed to get a mate, and humans are never supposed to feel it first. It hits me first, and that is impossible.

"No," I whisper. "Not you. Anyone but you."

He leans in close, his breath hot on my skin. "You smell like her," he says slowly. "Like Lira."

“How did you know that name?” I ask, and my voice shakes.

His jaw tightens. "That scent does not belong to a dead woman.”

My head spins at that name because I know that name and I have not heard it spoken out loud since the day I buried her.

I think of my little sister Maya, twelve years old and hiding at home. I promised her no one would take her to the north, and that is why I am here.

I did not come to be a sacrifice. I came to kill him. I have a tiny glass tooth in my mouth filled with wolf poison, and one bite will stop his heart.

The bond pulls at me hard, wanting his hands, not his death, and I hate my body for wanting him.

"You are nothing," he says loudly for the court to hear. "A human to warm my bed for one night."

The words should hurt, but the bond sings louder. I step into him, chains clanking. "Then warm me," I say.

Gasps echo off the ice as his hand snaps around my waist and yanks me against his chest, hard muscle and fast heart.

"Careful," he whispers, his mouth at my ear. "I break what I touch."

"Good," I say. "I am already broken."

He buries his face in my neck and breathes me in, and his whole big body shivers. I shake too, and the glass tooth in my mouth cracks.

The bitter poison floods my tongue. My throat closes and I cannot breathe, so I claw at his shirt.

He smells it, and his eyes go wide with panic. "You stupid boy," he growls. "You came to murder me."

He does not call the guards. He bites his own wrist open and presses the bleeding wound to my mouth. "Drink," he orders.

I know what wolf blood does. It heals, and it seals a mate bond so deep nothing can break it.

If I drink, I live, but I will be his. If I do not, I die right here.

I open my mouth, and his blood hits my tongue, hot and iron-sweet, nothing like I expected. Power explodes in my chest, and my back arches.

The iron collar around my neck snaps in half and hits the floor with a clang. Every wolf drops to one knee, heads down.

No king has ever given blood to a human in a thousand years, and it is against their oldest law.

He holds my face in both hands, and his gold eyes are scared now, not cruel. "Mine," he says softly.

The great doors crash open, and cold wind blows in. A woman walks in with guards, and my heart stops.

She has my dark hair, my eyes, and my mother's face. My mother, whom I buried ten years ago.

She looks at the king's hands on me and at the blood on my mouth. Tears fill her eyes as she looks between us.

"Aiden, step away from him," she says, her voice breaking. "He is your brother, and if the bond stays, it will kill you both by the full moon.”