Chapter 2: Throne of Thorns

My mother's voice breaks the hall, and the king's blood burns like fire in my throat.

I stare at her and see my mother, and my knees give out. The King holds me up with both hands before I hit the ice.

His hands are still on my cheeks, and his blood is still on my tongue. My heart beats too fast to count, and it beats with his.

She steps closer, tears running down her cheeks, and her hands shake. "Aiden," she says, soft like she used to when I had nightmares.

Wolves rise from their knees around us, growling low in their chests. "This is wrong," one lord shouts, with his face red. "He has mated his own blood."

Another lord points a shaking finger at us. "The law demands death for both of you. Now!"

The king pulls me behind his back in one fast move. His big shoulders block the whole court from me, and his body heat surrounds me.

My mother touches his arm first, then mine. Her hands are cold as the ice floor. "Listen to me," she says, and her voice does not shake. "I was Luna to the old king, and I gave birth to Cael."

Cael. The King has a name now, and it hits my chest harder than the bond.

She looks at me, and her eyes break open. "I ran because the old King killed soft sons. He killed my first two babies for crying too loud."

My breath stops because I never knew I had brothers before.

"I hid with a human man in the south," she says. "I had you, so I faked my death to keep you safe from the North."

My stomach drops to the floor. Cael is my half-brother. We have the same mother but different fathers.

The boy I want to kiss is my brother. The bond in my chest screams louder, hot, angry, and wrong.

Cael's voice is rough like rocks. "Mother," he says. The word sounds strange coming from a king who never says soft things.

She nods fast, wiping her face. "The Goddess curses blood matings. The bond will burn you both out from the inside."

"How long?" I ask. My voice cracks in the middle.

"Three nights," she says. "Not weeks. Three. The full moon rises on the third night."

Panic hits my ribs hard. Three nights to live or break a bond that feels like breathing.

My ears ring, then everything goes sharp and clear. Every heartbeat in the hall drums loud against my head.

Fear smells sharp like metal, and anger smells like hot smoke. Cael smells like pine, storm, and blood, and my nose finds him in the crowd without trying.

My body leans toward him on its own, pulled by the cord in my chest.

He stares at me with gold eyes wide and wild. "You are different," he says, his voice hard and flat.

“You are more Lycan than you know,” my mother says, her mouth tight. "Just enough for the bond to pick him and just enough for the tree to want him."

She points at the black throne behind us, its roots crawling under the ice like black veins pulsing slowly. "The First Tree feeds on royal blood. It has been starving since I left, and it calls to its own blood."

The lord in blue pushes forward, his wine breath sour. "Give us the human boy," he shouts. "Let the tree drink his blood instead of our King and save the North!"

Cael growls, low and dangerous, and the sound shakes my bones and the ice under my feet. "Touch him and I rip your throat out with my teeth."

His hand finds my waist again, hot and possessive. Even with my mother watching and the whole court listening, my skin burns where he touches, and I hate that I like it.

I should have pushed him away because he is my brother, but I did not. The bond is stronger than shame, stronger than blood.

My mother sees his hand on me, and her face falls. "This is why I ran," she says, her voice thin. "I have seen what the bond does to brothers before."

"The last time," she says quietly, looking at the floor, "both boys died screaming on the third night. The tree took them both."

My throat closes up because I came here to save Maya, not die with a brother-mate.

"Where is Maya?" I ask, fast and sharp. "Is she still safe at home?"

My mother looks down at the floor and does not answer. Cael goes completely still behind me, his hand tightening on my waist, and a cold feeling drops through my gut because she knows something.

The side doors bang open hard enough to shake snow from the ceiling. Guards drag a small figure in chains across the ice.

Dark hair, thin shoulders, bare feet bleeding on the black floor, and my heart stops beating for a second. It is Maya, my little sister. Her lip is split open, her dress is torn, and her eyes finding mine across the hall are wide and scared.

She sees me in the king's arms, blood on my mouth, and collar broken on the floor, and she sees our mother alive, standing next to us.

She stops walking, even with guards pulling her chains, and she stares at me like she does not know me.

"You promised," she whispers. "You said you would come for me, not choose him over me."

Cael's arm locks around me harder, and my mother covers her mouth with both hands while the bond in my chest pulls toward my brother even as my sister bleeds ten steps away.

The lord in blue smiles, slow and cruel. "Good," he says. "Now we have two hearts for the tree. Pick one, my king."