The Celebration

The great hall of Aldrian's fortress was packed with wolves from across his territory, all of them dressed in silks and furs and jewels that glittered in the candlelight. The air was thick with the smell of roasted meat and expensive wine, heavy with laughter and gossip and the clink of goblets. Tapestries depicting bloody hunts and triumphant battles covered every wall, and the central hearth held a fire big enough to roast an entire deer.

Lyra moved through the crowd with a heavy pitcher of wine, her head down, her shoulders hunched, her coarse linen dress marking her as a servant. She filled cups, wiped spills, and stayed out of the way, just as her mother had taught her. The wolves inside her paced and snarled, their senses reaching out to touch everything in the room. She could smell things she had never noticed before, the fear on the youngest wolves and the anger simmering beneath every conversation.

And beneath all of it, something else.

Something that made her wolves stop and lift their heads.

Lyra followed their gaze to a figure standing in the shadows near the entrance. He looked old, bent and limping, leaning heavily on a gnarled wooden staff. His back was hunched, his movements slow and painful, and a hood covered his head. He stood apart from the other guests, ignored and unnoticed, and the wolves around him looked at him with barely concealed disgust.

Mate, the white wolf whispered.

Mate, the dark wolf agreed.

Lyra nearly dropped the pitcher. Mate. The word echoed in her head, impossible and terrifying. She was a slave, a bastard, a girl whose own father had never acknowledged her existence. She could not have a mate. She could not have anything.

But the wolves were certain. The old man in the shadows was hers.

Before she could process the revelation, a hand closed around her wrist.

"Slave. You have been ignoring me." Elara's voice was sharp as broken glass.

Lyra's blood ran cold. She had been so focused on the old man that she had forgotten to watch for the princess. "I am sorry, my lady," she said. "I did not see you."

"Of course you did not see me." Elara's voice dripped with contempt. "Perhaps you would like to pour me some wine as an apology."

Lyra stepped forward and raised the pitcher, but before she could pour, Elara's hand shot out and knocked it sideways. Wine splashed over the rim, a cascade of deep red that soaked into Lyra's dress and dripped onto the floor. A few drops landed on Elara's gown, staining the pale blue silk near the hem.

"My gown!" Elara shrieked. "You did this on purpose! I want her executed!"

The room went silent. Aldrian rose from his throne and walked to the edge of the dais. "The girl is worthless," he said, "but execution is excessive."

"She attacked me," Elara insisted.

Ziera stepped forward, her green eyes glittering. "Sell her to the rogue traders."

Lyra's blood turned to ice. "Please," she whispered. "I did nothing."

"Silence." Aldrian's alpha power pressed down on her, forcing her to her knees. "Two days until your eighteenth birthday. If you manifest a wolf, you will be given to my soldiers as a breeder. If you remain wolf-less, you will be sold to the rogue traders."

Lyra bowed her head, hiding the tears that burned in her eyes. Tears of rage, not sorrow.

And then she felt it again. The presence. The old man was limping toward her.

His staff clicked on the stone floor as he walked. The crowd parted before him, faces twisting with disgust. He stopped directly in front of her, close enough that she could see the scars on his hands and smell pine and smoke on his clothes.

"Stand up," he said.

His voice was low and rough, but there was something beneath it, something young and powerful that did not match his bent and broken appearance.

Lyra stood.

He reached up and pushed back his hood, and the face beneath was not old at all. It was young, thirty years old at most, with sharp features and a strong jaw and dark hair that had been powdered grey for his disguise. Scars marked his face, a white line from his temple to his jaw and another across his nose, but beneath the scars, he was beautiful in a fierce and weathered way.

His eyes were the color of molten gold, and they burned with a fire that stole her breath.

"I am Kael," he announced. "And you are mine."