C1

“Are you trembling because you’re afraid, little wolf?”

The heat of his massive frame pressed me into the furs, his breath ghosting over my ear like a summer storm. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.

“Your heart is hammering against your ribs, Lyra,” he murmured, his voice a low, primal vibration that made my skin prickle. “You can still walk out of this lodge. I won't stop you.”

I curled my fingers into the sheets, my knuckles turning white. “No. I’m staying. I want this.”

“Good.”

He leaned down, his teeth grazing the sensitive cord of my neck where a mark should have been. The night became a blur of silver moonlight and raw, overwhelming sensation.

“Is the gold in the bag?”

Vespera Crowe didn't even look up from the shadows of the Crimson Fang Lodge lobby. She kicked a heavy black satchel toward my feet as I stumbled out of the elevator, my legs shaking and my scent heavy with another man's musk.

“Every coin is there, Lyra,” she rasped. “You did your part.”

“I’m leaving,” I snapped, snatching the bag.

“Wait, the Alpha's son"

“I don't care about the Alpha’s son! My family is dying!”

I sprinted toward the Moonshadow Infirmary, ignoring the ache in my body. I reached the Silverclaw Wing just as the sun began to bleed over the horizon of the Duskwild Expanse. Two stretchers sat abandoned in the hall.

“Stop!” I screamed, catching Dr. Alistair Viremont by the sleeve. “I have it. I have the payment for the blood-healing! Save my mother and Orion!”

Viremont gestured to a nurse. “Count it. Quickly.”

I watched them wheel my mother, Selene, toward the glowing runes of the operating theater. But they didn't touch the other stretcher.

“What are you doing?” I lunged for the doctor’s arm. “My brother! Why isn't Orion being moved?”

Viremont looked at me with hollow eyes. “His wolf has already crossed the veil, Lyra. It’s too late. His spark is gone.”

The world shattered. My knees hit the stone floor, and a howl I didn't know I possessed tore from my throat before the darkness claimed me.

“You shouldn't be here, Darius.”

I stood outside my mother’s recovery ward, the scent of my father the man who had exiled us to this frozen wasteland eight years ago clogging my senses.

“Selene, listen to reason,” Darius Nightbane’s voice rumbled from behind the door. “You and Evelyne Blackthorne were pack-sisters. You swore a blood-oath that our bloodlines would merge. It’s a sacred debt.”

“A debt?” My mother’s voice was weak, cracked with grief. “You threw us to the scavengers, Darius! You left me pregnant and alone in the Expanse! And now you want Lyra to pay your debts?”

“Kaelen Blackthorne is the heir to the Blackthorne Pack! It is a position of power!”

“He’s a broken wolf!” my mother hissed, a tray crashing to the floor. “The silver-poisoning from the rogue attack left him paralyzed. He can’t even shift! You want to tether my daughter to a man who is a ghost in his own skin?”

I pushed the door open, my eyes locked on the man who had abandoned us. “I’ll do it.”

Darius spun around, his eyes widening as he took in my haggard appearance my thin frame and the scars of a decade of survival. “Lyra?”

“I will marry Kaelen Blackthorne,” I said, my voice cold as the frost on the windows. “But I have one condition.”

Darius recovered his smug composure. “Speak then.”

“We return to Ironvale City. You return every acre of the Nightbane territory that belonged to my mother’s dowry. You give us our status back, or you can find someone else to marry the fallen Alpha.”

Darius hesitated, his greed warring with his desperation. “That’s a lot of coin and land, Lyra.”

“Then let your precious younger daughter, Liora, do it,” I challenged, stepping closer. “Let her spend her life feeding a paralyzed man who can never hunt with her. Or give me what is mine.”

“Fine,” Darius growled, unable to meet my gaze. “Agree to the blood-bond, and you can come home.”

“Good,” I whispered, looking at my mother’s tear-filled eyes. “Pack your things, Mom. We’re going back to the pack.”