Chapter 4: The Hunter's Prize

Diana's POV

The hem of the ivory gown was no longer pristine. It snagged on brambles and soaked up the dark, freezing mud of the Blackwood forest as I lunged through the underbrush. The heavy veil had been tossed back over my shoulders, fluttering behind me like the broken wings of a moth—a white beacon of treason against the obsidian trees.

"Bianca! Stop!" I screamed, my lungs burning from the icy night air. "You can’t do this! If you disappear, they’ll kill everyone! Uncle Alaric, the pack... me!"

Ahead of me, a flash of a dark traveling cloak disappeared behind a cluster of ancient hemlocks. Bianca was faster, fueled by a selfish adrenaline I couldn't match. She had always been the predator, and I, the healer who followed behind to mend what she broke.

"Go back, Diana!" her voice floated through the trees, ghostly and distant. "Tell them I drowned in the ravine! Tell them I was taken by a rogue! Just let me go!"

"I can’t lie for you anymore!" I tripped over a gnarled root, the satin heels of the wedding shoes snapping. I kicked them off, my bare feet hitting the frigid, needle-strewn earth. "Bianca!"

I burst into a small clearing where the moonlight hit the ground in jagged white patches. I turned in a circle, gasping for air, the lace of my bodice tight enough to bruise my ribs. The forest was silent. The only sound was the thrumming of my own blood and the distant, rhythmic rushing of the creek.

She was gone. My cousin had vanished into the shadows, leaving me standing in the middle of a nightmare, wearing the very dress that marked her for a King.

"Bianca, please..." I whispered, crumbling to my knees. The silk of the dress pooled around me, turning gray in the mud.

Suddenly, the brush behind me exploded with a violence that made my heart stop. I didn't see the hand until it was too late.

Crack.

The force of the slap sent my head reeling. The world spun into a kaleidoscope of white lace and dark trees. I sprawled into the dirt, the metallic taste of blood blooming in my mouth as my cheek throbbed with a searing heat.

"You stupid, worthless girl!" my uncle, Alpha Alaric, roared. He stood over me, his face a mask of mottled rage, his chest heaving. He wasn't looking for Bianca; he was looking at the ruin I had made of his survival. "You let her run! You stood in her room while she plotted her escape and you didn’t say a word to me!"

"Uncle, I tried to stop her—" I gasped, clutching my burning face, my eyes blurred with tears.

"You tried to stop her? You’re wearing the dress!"

He lunged forward, his shadow stretching like a gargoyle's across the stone. He seized the ivory lace of the gown, hauling me to my feet with such violence that the delicate silk groaned—a sound like a dying breath. "If the Amberclaw find an empty carriage, they will put this manor to the torch before the moon sets. Do you understand? Your life is a pittance. Only a bride buys us time!"

"I am not her!" I shrieked, but he shook me, his fingers digging into my shoulders like iron talons.

Before I could plead further, the silence was broken by the heavy, rhythmic strike of iron-shod hooves against the cobblestones. Out of the swirling fog emerged a monstrous carriage of blackened oak and reinforced iron, pulled by four massive horses with coats the color of a midnight sky and eyes that burned like dying embers.

The carriage groaned on its heavy leaf springs as it came to a halt, the wood creaking like a ship’s hull. The driver sat high on the box, cloaked in a tattered greatcoat, holding the reins with hands encased in heavy, metal-plated gauntlets. This wasn't a vehicle of grace; it was a rolling fortress, a hearse designed to carry a living debt into the mouth of a wolf’s den.

The steam from the horses’ nostrils mingled with the cold night air, smelling of wet fur and hot copper.

"The tribute is secured," a voice rasped from the darkness.

"There she is!" Alaric shouted, his voice cracking with cowardice. He pointed a shaking finger at me—the girl in the white dress, the girl he had just struck. "There is.. my daughter.. Bianca.. the bride! She... she tried to run in her excitement, but I found her! She’s ready to fulfill the debt!"

"Wait!" I cried out, holding up my mud-stained hands. "I'm not Bianca! Uncle, tell them! Tell them who I am!"

"Stop lying Bianca. Stop shaming our pack and pretending you are your worthless cousin." he said.

Alaric didn't look at me. He backed away into the shadows, already abandoning me to the wolves.

The lead guard closed the distance in three strides. He didn't look at my face; he looked at the ivory lace, the seed pearls, and the heavy Vane scent that clung to the fabric.

"Save it, Vane," the guard snapped. He hoisted me up by my arms, his grip like iron.

"You don't understand," I gasped, struggling against his strength. "I'm her cousin! I'm the healer! She went that way—she’s the one you want!"

The guard laughed—a dry, humorless sound that chilled me more than the wind. 

"Every bride says she’s someone else when the cage door opens," he spat. "We have the scent of the Vane bride, and you’re wearing the dress. Your father caught you trying yo run away. That’s enough for the Alpha."

"Please! Look at my hands—they’re stained with herbs, not ink! I'm not the one who signed the treaty!"

"The King doesn't care about your excuses, Bianca" the guard muttered, dragging me toward the edge of the woods where a black carriage waited like a predatory beast. "He cares about the blood in your veins and the vows you’re about to take. If you keep screaming, he will order us to muzzle you, and that’s a hell of a way to start a marriage."

He shoved me into the back seat. The door slammed, the locks engaging with a final, defeaning thud.

As the iron-shod wheels struck the cobblestones with a sound like thunder, the heavy carriage lurched forward, plunging toward the Amberclaw border. I slumped against the cold, wine-dark velvet, weeping silently behind the stifling weight of the lace.

My own blood had bartered me away to save a crumbling manor and a coward’s skin. The mistake was sealed in bone and wax. The Silent King was waiting in his cathedral of shadow, expecting a princess—an assassin—and instead, he would receive a healer with dirt beneath her fingernails and a heart full of terror.

The carriage swayed violently as the horses galloped into the sunless woods, the whip cracking like a gunshot in the mist. I was no longer Diana Vane, the Omega of Demonmaw, the apothecary of the conservatory. I was a living debt, a ghost in ivory, the only sacrifice left to sate the hunger of the North.