Chapter 2: The Attack

The door opened without a knock.

Three figures stepped into the cabin. The first carried a lit torch. Isolde Kane stood in front. Two large males from the pack flanked her, both wearing the dark leather of Kael’s personal guard.

Isolde looked around the cabin once, narrow bed, uneven chair, cold hearth, before settling on Sera.

“You should have left already,” Isolde said.

Sera stayed seated on the edge of the bed, hands flat on her knees, though her heart had begun to slam against her ribs.

One of the guards closed the door behind them. The latch clicked into place.

Isolde took a single step closer. “Kael gave you a chance to walk away. You sat here instead. That makes this simpler.”

The second guard moved to the small table and set a length of rope on it. Torchlight gleamed on the fibers.

Sera’s gaze tracked the rope, then returned to Isolde. Cold dread pooled low in her stomach, but she kept her face still. She would not give Isolde that too, not after everything else the night had already taken.

Isolde tilted her head. “The pack is celebrating. No one will hear anything from this far edge. Ronan is drinking with the others. Your little friend Vivienne is nowhere near.”

She nodded once to the guards.

They moved together. One caught Sera’s wrists and pulled them behind her back. The other took the rope and bound them tight. The fibers bit into her skin. Sera did not struggle, though her breath had gone shallow and quick, and every instinct she owned screamed at her to fight anyway.

Isolde watched without expression. “Kael wants the defective thread gone completely. Rejection was not enough for some of the elders. They want the ground clean before the bonding rites.”

Isolde crouched slightly to meet Sera’s eyes. “You understand, don’t you? A rejected mate who simply disappears is a rumor. A rejected mate who dies quietly during the bonding rites is a lesson. The elders want the second one.”

The first guard hauled Sera to her feet. The second opened the door again. Cold night air rushed in. The distant drums still rolled through the trees.

They walked her out into the forest, Isolde following a few paces behind with the torch held high. The red moon lit the path in broken patches. Pine branches scraped Sera’s arms as the guards pushed her forward.

They stopped in a small clearing farther from the cabin, where the trees grew thicker and the ground dipped into a shallow hollow. Old leaves covered the dirt.

One guard forced Sera to her knees. The other drew a short blade from his belt. The metal caught the torchlight.

Isolde stepped into the hollow and looked down at her.

“This is where weak blood ends,” Isolde said. “No one will look for you here. By morning the animals will have done the rest.”

The guard with the blade moved behind Sera and gripped her hair, pulling her head back to expose her throat. Sera’s eyes stayed open, fixed on the red moon through the branches. Somewhere underneath the fear was a strange, quiet defiance, a refusal to close her eyes and let this be the last thing she chose.

The blade began to lower.

A new sound cut through the trees, not a footstep, but a low, heavy growl that belonged to no Blackthorn wolf.

Both guards froze. Isolde turned sharply toward the sound, torch raised.

From the darker trees beyond the hollow, a tall figure stepped into the edge of the light. Black coat. Black gloves. Face half shadowed. He moved without hurry, and the growl seemed to come from somewhere low in his chest.

Isolde’s voice sharpened. “This is Blackthorn territory. Leave.”

Silence answered her. The man took another step forward, and the torchlight finally reached his face: dark eyes, sharp features, a thin scar along one jawline. His gaze moved over Isolde, then the two guards, then found Sera on her knees with the blade still at her throat, and stayed there.

“The girl is not yours to kill,” he said, voice low and absolute.

Isolde laughed once, short and cold. “She is pack refuse. No one claims her.”

Something unreadable moved behind the stranger’s eyes.

“I do.”

The nearest guard lunged. The man in the black coat was faster. One moment he stood at the edge of the light. The next his hand was around the guard’s throat. A sharp twist, and the body dropped.

The second guard released Sera and swung the blade. The man caught his wrist, turned it, and drove the same blade upward. The guard fell without a sound.

Isolde stumbled back, the torch shaking in her hand.

The man stepped over the bodies and stopped in front of Sera. He looked down at her bound hands, the rope marks on her wrists, the dirt on her knees, and said nothing about who he was or how he had found her.

“Seraphina Vale. Your bloodline does not end in this dirt.”

He cut the rope with a single motion. The fibers fell away.

Behind him, Isolde turned and ran into the trees, her torchlight vanishing between the trunks. He did not chase her.

He extended one gloved hand toward Sera.

“Stand. We are leaving Blackthorn land tonight.”

Sera stayed on her knees, her eyes on his face, questions rising faster than she could sort them. Who are you? How do you know my name? What do you mean by my bloodline? None of them made it past her throat.

In the distance, new howls rose. Not celebration howls. Alarm howls. The pack had caught the scent of blood.

The man’s head turned slightly toward the sound, though his voice stayed calm.

“Now, Seraphina. Or the next blades will not be aimed only at you.”

He waited, hand still extended, as the howls drew closer through the trees.