Chapter One: Blood In The Snow

The sharp, metallic taste of warm blood filled my mouth as I dragged my bad leg through the deep snow.

Every single step felt like pulling an anchor out of frozen mud. The tear in my pants was soaked right through, the skin underneath sliced deep by a silver-tipped arrow three miles back. It burned with a dull, throbbing heat that made my head spin.

Behind me, far down the mountain slope, the howls came again.

Low, heavy, and hungry. Three wolves.

I knew those howls anywhere. I had listened to them outside my cabin window for five long years. They belonged to Marcus’s personal enforcers brutes trained to hunt down rogues, break bones, and drag targets back in chains.

Keep moving, Valeria, I told myself, digging my fingernails into my palms until the sharp pain forced my brain to focus. If you stop now, you die. Or worse, Marcus gets his hands on you again.

My body was ready to collapse onto the frozen ground and give up, but my mind refused. Panicking was a luxury for high-born wolves who had a pack to protect them. I was an Omega. In the Bloodmoon Pack, Omegas who panicked ended up six feet under.

My hand dropped to my waist, my fingers wrapping around the small leather bag tied to my belt. Inside was a rough powder made from crushed silver-berries a wild, bitter plant I had spent three freezing nights gathering along the river. It wouldn't kill a shifter on its own, but it was pure poison to their senses.

I wasn't just running blindly through these dark pine trees. I was leading them straight to the narrow pass at the edge of the jagged mountain ravine. A bottleneck.

"Stop right there, you little murderer!" a voice roared through the trees.

The loud crunch of breaking branches exploded to my left. Jared, my stepbrother’s chief enforcer, burst into the clearing. His massive grey wolf was dripping with thick spit, his yellow eyes wide with the thrill of the hunt. Steam rose in heavy clouds from his snout.

"Marcus wants you back in the dungeons!" Jared growled, his voice a low, rough rumble in his wolf throat. "The Alpha demands justice for his father!"

"I didn't kill the Alpha, Jared!" I shouted back, ducking low as a pine branch swung toward my face. "Marcus slit his throat while he slept and blamed the only person who couldn't fight back!"

"Your clothes are covered in his blood!" Jared lunged.

His massive wolf body flew through the air, his jaws snapping shut just inches from my neck. The smell of raw meat and wet fur hit my nose.

I didn't try to outrun him. Trying to outrun a full-grown warrior wolf on an open slope was suicide.

Instead, I dropped hard onto my side, sliding across the slick ice right under his leaping belly. As he flew over me, I ripped the leather bag off my belt and threw a big handful of the silver-berry powder straight into his open eyes, nose, and mouth.

Jared let out a terrible, high-pitched shriek a raw sound of pure pain as the silver dust burned into his raw skin.

He crashed face-first into a giant boulder and hit the ground hard. He rolled around violently in the snow, pawing at his bloody face and whining like a whipped pup.

The other two wolves skidded to a stop at the treeline, their giant paws kicking up clouds of white powder. They stared at Jared in utter shock, then looked up at me.

I scrambled to my feet, my bad leg almost giving out under my weight. I wiped a mix of snow and blood from my lip, pulled my small hunting knife from my boot, and held another handful of powder up in the air.

My heart was beating out of my chest like a trapped bird, but I forced my back straight and my voice dead calm.

"Come any closer," I spat, staring right into the eyes of the lead wolf, "and I’ll make sure you swallow the rest."

The two wolves bared their teeth, low growls vibrating in their chests. They took a slow, careful step forward, spreading out to surround me from both sides. They knew I was bleeding out. They knew I was hurt.

Before they could leap, a deep sound cut through the quiet forest.

It was a horn. Heavy, booming, and loud. The vibration was so strong it shook loose snow off the high pine branches and sent a chill straight down my spine.

The two enforcers froze instantly. The vicious hunger in their eyes vanished, replaced by pure terror.

We had crossed the border stone three hundred yards back. This wasn't Bloodmoon territory anymore.

This was the Northern Realm the home of Alpha King Kaelen, the Cold Sovereign. A man who executed trespassers without asking questions and hung rogue hides from his outer walls.

"She’s not worth dying for," one of the wolves muttered in a panicked voice, backing away into the thick brush. "Look at her. She’s half-dead anyway. The King’s guards will tear her apart before sunset."

Without waiting for Jared, who was still groaning on the ground, the two wolves turned around and ran back into the shadows of the woods.

Silence returned to the forest, heavy and freezing.

My knees finally gave out. I sank onto one knee, gasping for air as spots danced across my eyes. The adrenaline that had kept me moving for twelve hours was completely gone, leaving me with a cold, heavy exhaustion.

I had escaped Marcus's executioner for today. But I was currently sitting right inside the hunting grounds of the most dangerous Alpha alive.

Get up, Valeria, I forced myself to think. You didn't survive three years of Marcus's abuse just to freeze to death in the dirt.

I took a deep breath, pulled my thin coat tight around my body, and forced myself back onto my feet.

Through the trees, I could see it: the dark stone towers of the Northern Castle, rising into the grey sky like iron spikes.

I didn't run into the woods to hide. I didn't try to build a shelter.

I gripped my small knife tightly, set my jaw, and started walking straight toward those dark towers.

I wasn't going to beg for my life. I was going to make the Cold Sovereign a deal he couldn't turn down.