Chapter 2: Five Years Later

Kade POV

Five years later, nobody in the North called me the beggar Alpha anymore.

They called me other things. The Butcher of the Black Ridge, after the rogue war. The Iron Alpha, after I took the silver mines from Ironhide in a single winter. In taverns where they thought I couldn't hear, they called me the Alpha with no heart.

That one I liked best. It was the only one that was true.

I stood on the balcony of the new Thornvale keep and watched dawn break over what I'd built. Timber yards stacked high along the river. Smoke from the smelters curling up beyond the ridge. Training grounds full of warriors who would walk into fire if I told them to. Three hundred and twelve wolves had become nine hundred, and not one of them had gone hungry in four winters.

I had rebuilt Thornvale from ash. Literally.

"You're brooding again."

I didn't turn. Mara's bare feet were silent on the stone, but her perfume announced her: jasmine and steel polish. She slid her arms around my waist from behind and pressed her cheek between my shoulder blades.

"Come back to bed, Alpha. It's barely sunrise."

"I have a council meeting."

"You always have a council meeting." Her hands drifted lower, slow, teasing. "Let the council wait."

I caught her wrists and set them gently away from me.

Mara Quinn was one of my best warriors and the only woman who had shared my bed for more than a season. She was beautiful, sharp and ruthless with a blade. She was also very clear about what she wanted from me, and it wasn't my heart.

It was the Luna's seat.

"Mara," I said. "Go and get dressed."

Her eyes flashed. For a second I saw the warrior under the silk. Then she smiled, kissed my jaw, and sauntered back inside without bothering to cover herself.

Ash didn't so much as lift his head. He never did, with her. My wolf had been half-asleep for five years, waking only for battle. The old healer said it was grief. I said it was peace.

Neither of us believed me.

  *

I walked down to the training yard before the council met. I did it every morning. A pack watches its Alpha, and mine needed to see that I was there, awake and armed, before they were.

The yard was already busy. Two dozen warriors were running drills in the grey light, breath steaming in the cold. Sparring pairs circled each other in the sand rings. At the far end, a line of new recruits was being shouted at by my weapons master, a scarred old wolf named Harrow who had trained my father before me.

One of the recruits caught my eye. He was barely more than a boy, fair-haired and freckled, swinging a practice sword with more enthusiasm than skill. Harrow knocked it out of his hands for the third time while I watched. The boy picked it up, grinned, and charged again.

"Who's that?" I asked.

Harrow spat into the sand. "Owen Brandt. Seventeen. Took his oath three weeks ago. Fast feet, no sense, and he won't stay down."

"Good," I said. "Keep him."

Owen spotted me and nearly dropped his sword again. He straightened up, put his fist to his chest, and bowed so low he almost fell over. A few of the other recruits snickered. I nodded to him, and his whole face lit up as if I'd handed him a crown.

That was what Thornvale was now. Boys who wanted to fight for it. Five years ago, half the pack had been ready to leave.

I left the yard and took the road down into the town.

The house I was looking for sat at the very end of the southern lane, small and neat, with a herb garden by the door that someone had stopped tending. A woman answered my knock. She was thin and pale, with red-rimmed eyes and a baby on her hip. Behind her, three more children peered at me from the shadows of the kitchen.

"Alpha," she whispered, and tried to curtsy.

"Don't, Elsa." I caught her elbow before she could bend. "Please."

Tomas's widow. The herder who had died on my southern border ten days ago, killed by Silvercrest warriors over a few sheep and a burned barn. I had come to see her every morning since. I didn't know what else to do.

"Has the pack sent everything you need?" I asked.

"Firewood. Food. More than enough." Her voice cracked. "It isn't the food, Alpha."

"I know."

The oldest child, a girl of maybe eight, came forward and stood beside her mother. She had Tomas's dark eyes. She looked up at me with an expression no child should ever wear.

"Are you going to make them pay?" she asked. "The ones who killed my papa?"

Elsa hushed her. But I crouched down so the girl and I were eye to eye.

"Yes," I said. "I promise you. Silvercrest will pay for what they did."

She studied my face for a long moment. Then she nodded, once, very seriously, as if we'd made a deal.

I walked back up the hill to the keep with that promise sitting heavy in my chest.

  *

The council chamber smelled of cedar and strong coffee. Rhys was already at the table, boots up, a stack of reports in his lap.

"Morning, sunshine," he said. "You look like you slept on a bag of nails."

"Report."

"Straight to business. My favourite." He swung his feet down. "Three things. The timber barges reached the southern markets two days early. The Ironhide Alpha sent a very polite letter asking to renegotiate the mine treaty, which I translated for you as please stop scaring us. And—" His face changed. "The Silvercrest situation."

The room went still.

Ten days ago, a band of Silvercrest warriors had crossed my southern border at night. They'd burned two farmsteads and killed a herder named Tomas, a man with four children. My patrols had caught six of them. The rest had run home to their river city.

I had sent one message to Lucian Vane. Pay the blood debt, or I come to collect it.

"Silvercrest replied," Rhys said. "Last night."

"How much are they offering?"

Rhys hesitated. Rhys never hesitated. "That's the thing. They're not offering gold."

I frowned. "Lucian Vane would sooner sell his mother than part with gold."

"Word in the south is he doesn't have any left." Rhys leaned forward. "Our traders say Silvercrest is rotten. Lucian's been gambling, borrowing against the river tolls, selling off land to the southern packs. The silk walls are still standing, but there's nothing behind them."

I let that settle in my chest. It felt warmer than it should have.

Five years ago, Lucian Vane had tossed a gold coin at my feet and called me a beggar in front of nine packs. Now his walls were hollow and his treasury was empty, and my barges were carrying timber to the same southern markets he owed money to. I had imagined this moment a thousand times on cold nights. I had thought it would feel like victory.

It felt like waiting. Like a wolf crouched in the long grass, watching something wounded limp closer.

"How bad?" I asked.

"Bad enough that his own warriors are deserting." Rhys tapped one of the reports in his lap. "Three families crossed into Ironhide territory last month. Two more came to us. They say the Luna has stopped paying the servants."

"So what are they offering?"

Rhys slid a folded letter across the table. "A tribute. In the old way."

I knew the old way. Before treaties and coin, when a pack couldn't pay a blood debt, it paid in people. A warrior to fight for the wronged pack. A servant to work its fields. Or a bride.

"They're offering me a woman," I said flatly.

"A tribute bride. To serve in your house, or warm your bed, or—" Rhys spread his hands. "Whatever you decide. Read the rest."

I unfolded the letter. Heavy cream paper, trimmed in silver. The handwriting was elegant and familiar, and my body recognised it before my mind did. Every muscle in my back went tight.

To Alpha Kade Ravenmoor of Thornvale,

Silvercrest regrets the actions of certain undisciplined warriors and wishes to settle the debt between our packs in the most honourable way we know. We will deliver one tribute to your southern border at the next new moon. She is young, healthy, obedient, and entirely yours to keep or discard as you see fit.

I chose her personally.

At the bottom, in a looping signature I had once seen on love letters I'd burned years ago:

Luna Celeste Vane.

The paper creased under my fingers.

For five years, I had not said her name. I had not let anyone say it in my presence. I'd taken down every portrait, burned every letter and banished every ballad that mentioned the Ascension. And now here she was, sitting on my council table in silver ink, offering me a gift like a cat dropping a dead bird at a door.

"Kade." Rhys's voice was careful. "You don't have to accept. Refuse it and demand gold. They can't pay, and then we've got every right to ride on Silvercrest."

"That's exactly what she wants."

"How do you figure?"

"Because she knows me." I set the letter down. "She knows I'd rather go to war than accept a pity gift from her. If I ride on Silvercrest, the southern packs will call me the aggressor. The ones Lucian owes money to will defend him to protect their loans. She's baiting me."

"And if you accept?"

I looked at the letter again. I chose her personally.

Celeste never did anything without a reason. Five years ago, she had smiled at me through the window of a carriage while my pack burned. I had never been able to prove that Lucian set the fire, but I had never needed proof. I knew.

Whoever she was sending me, it wasn't a gift. It was a move in a game.

"I'll accept," I said.

Rhys stared. "You're serious."

"I'm curious." I stood and walked to the window. "Celeste wants something from me. I want to know what. The fastest way to find out is to open the box she's sent."

"And when the box turns out to be full of snakes?"

"Then I'll cut their heads off."

"And Tomas's family?" Rhys asked quietly. "They were promised a blood debt. Not a servant girl from Celeste's kitchen."

I thought of the little girl with her father's dark eyes. Are you going to make them pay?

"They'll get their debt," I said. "Whatever Silvercrest sends me is the beginning of the payment, not the end of it. If Lucian Vane is as broke as you say, he's desperate. Desperate men make mistakes. When he makes one, I'll be waiting."

Rhys sighed and pushed his chair back. "Fine. I'll send a reply. New moon, southern border." He paused at the door. "For the record, I think this is a bad idea."

"Noted."

"And another for the record, you're still holding the letter."

I looked down. He was right. I'd picked it up again without noticing, and my thumb was resting over her signature.

I threw it into the fire.

It curled and blackened. The silver ink flared bright for an instant before it vanished. I watched until there was nothing left, then turned to leave.

That was when I noticed the second sheet.

It had been folded inside the first, small and thin, and it had slipped onto the floor beneath the table when I opened the letter. I picked it up.

Just one line, in the same looping hand. Written, I suddenly understood, for me alone.

I'm sending you something you'll want, Kade. You never could resist what was mine.

And beneath it, pressed flat into the paper, was a single strand of honey-gold hair, and a faint, unmistakable scent of honey and white roses.

Inside my chest, for the first time in five years, Ash opened his eyes.