Chapter 6: Celestial Iron

**Cassian**

The Riverfang Pack was a hollow shell.

I had known it the moment my stallion crossed the timber bridge. The stones of the walls were crumbling beneath the mortar; the sentries on the parapets had sluggish reflexes and dirty mail; and the Alpha who ruled them was a coward who wrapped himself in cheap velvet to hide the tremble in his knees.

For an hour, I had sat at their groaning banquet table, listening to Tyler babble about timber quotas and iron trade like a merchant begging for coppers.

Beside him, the daughter he wanted to sell me sat batting her painted eyelashes like a cheap tavern wench. Her name was Camilla. She had the pretty face of a pampered southern pup, but to my senses, she was an abomination.

Her aura was sick. Fractured. Disjointed.

Wolves carried a scent that matched their soul—pine, moss, river mud, or clean mountain air. But this girl smelled like rotting pond weeds buried beneath ten layers of expensive rose perfume. There was celestial power buzzing faintly around her skin, yes, but it didn't belong to her. It was unanchored, drifting off her flesh like smoke off a damp pile of leaves. It made my inner beast snarl in disgust.

*A leech,* my wolf rumbled from the deep cage of my ribs. *She wears stolen feathers. Kill her and burn the nest.*

"Patience," I warned him silently. "We take the tribute ledgers, we sign the peace, and we leave."

And then the side door near the kitchen pantry swung open.

The strike was immediate.

It did not hit my nose like an ordinary scent carried on the breeze. It hit my chest like a bolt of white-hot celestial lightning, exploding through my ribs and tearing the air straight out of my lungs.

Ancient moon lilies.

Crushed mountain pine right before the winter freeze.

And beneath it—pure, terrifying, and unmistakable—the sharp, metallic tang of celestial iron.

My beast didn't wake up.

He went completely insane.

He slammed his massive paws against the walls of my mind, letting out a deafening, territorial roar that rattled the inside of my skull. *MINE! THE QUEEN! FIND HER! CLAIM HER!*

My hands locked onto the edge of the table. Without my permission, my claws tore through the thick leather of my gloves, sinking half an inch into the polished oak boards with a sharp, splintering crack.

Commander Vane, standing two paces behind my right shoulder, reached for the hilt of his broadsword, his eyes darting across the rafters for an invisible threat.

"My Lord?" Vane murmured, his voice tight.

I didn't answer him. I couldn't move.

A girl walked out of the shadows.

She was so thin she barely looked real. She wore a coarse, shapeless dress of dirty gray wool that looked as though it had been scrubbed with lye. Her feet were bare, the pale skin cracked and smudged with soot and dried blood. She walked with her head bowed, her spine curved in the beaten, broken posture of a dog that had spent its entire life taking kicks from its master.

She carried a silver tea tray that was far too heavy for her starved arms. Every step she took sent a shudder through her limbs.

As she drew closer to the high table, the scent grew so potent, so intensely intoxicating, that the vision in my eyes tinted pure, molten gold.

The ancient texts in the Obsidian Citadel were not fairy tales. The Dark Moon bloodline had not burned to ash in the Great Schism twenty years ago. The lost ember had survived.

She was here.

She was standing right in front of me, trembling under the weight of three porcelain cups.

The girl dropped to her knees beside my chair. She lifted the silver tray with hands that shook so badly the crystal bowl rattled against the plate.

Tyler cleared his throat, trying to speak, but the words were just useless white noise in my ears.

The girl reached for the kettle.

As her arm lifted, the coarse gray sleeve fell back toward her elbow.

My breath stopped dead in my throat.

Her inner forearm was a slaughterhouse.

Clustered along the main vein were dozens of deep, purplish-black puncture scars—round, precise holes punched into her flesh over years of systematic abuse. Near the crook of her elbow, two fresh punctures were still weeping wet, bright fluid into the fraying hem of her sleeve.

And wrapping around the scars, inked in a cruel, jagged circle directly over the bone, were dark binding runes. Suppression marks. Forbidden magic designed to crush a wolf's spirit and sever its connection to the Moon Goddess.

They hadn't just beaten her.

They had been harvesting her.

A murderous, suffocating rage rose from the pit of my stomach, turning my blood to molten iron. The temperature around my chair plummeted; white frost began to creep across the wood, snapping the varnish like breaking glass.

The girl paused.

Then, slowly, she lifted her chin.

Her eyes were wide, clear, and the color of pure, unblemished silver.

The moment our gazes locked, the bond between our souls snapped taut with the force of an iron chain.

*Mate.*

My wolf roared through every vein in my body.

And in that same fraction of a second, I saw her starved strength finally give out. Her wrist buckled under the weight of the kettle, the silver pot tilted, and the steaming tea began to pour straight toward the edge of the table.