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Chapter Twenty-One: Pillak Towers

SIGRUNCold. That was the first thing I became aware of. It slipped beneath my collar and bit at my cheeks until consciousness clawed its way to the surface. I frowned and burrowed deeper into whatever warm thing I was leaning against. The warm thing rumbled. My eyes snapped open. For one disorienting second I had no idea where I was. Then I felt the horse beneath me and the arms cocooning me, and memory came back all at once. Oh God. I had fallen asleep on him. I sat up so abruptly the horse neighed in protest. Varul's hand settled immediately at my waist. "Careful." The cold hit me properly then. I sucked in a sharp breath. My breath fogged in front of me. The air felt sharper. Older. Like it had been here long before people and intended to remain long after. I looked up. The trees had changed. Ancient things, their trunks black and thick as houses, draped in dark moss. The road climbed steeply through rocky terrain veined with ice. And then the woo

Chapter Twenty-two: Supper

I stopped just inside the doorway.And stared.“Oh.”It was all I had.Because apparently the North had looked at the concept of subtlety and collectively decided against it.The entrance hall was enormous.I’m talking cathedral enormous.My entire apartment building back in Brooklyn could have fit in here with room left over for two parking lots and a small forest.Dark stone rose upward in sweeping arches until the ceiling disappeared into shadow. Massive iron chandeliers hung overhead, each one holding dozens of candles. The walls were draped in tapestries depicting forests, battles, wolves, mountains, and what looked suspiciously like a man fighting a bear.I blinked.Maybe it wasn’t a bear.Honestly, it might have been.This place seemed very committed to a particular aesthetic.I was still processing the tapestries when I realized the entrance hall was not empty.Twelve servants, all dressed in identical black uniforms, stood in two lines flanking a spiral staircase that led so

Chapter Twenty-three: The Attack on Linewatch

VARULThe moment the dining hall doors closed behind me, the scent of my wife became fainter.I disliked that immediately."This had better be fucking good, Darren," I said.I was in a foul mood.Not least because I had been seconds away from carrying my wife upstairs and locking the world outside my chambers when he had appeared.I had briefly considered the pros of having his neck on a guillotine for cock-blocking, until he had telepathically communicated the word Death to me.As members of the same pack, we operated with a hive mind that was only activated when it was necessary."It is, Alpha," he said solemnly. "I would not have intruded on your dinner otherwise.""Details," I said.He matched my large strides as we moved through the corridor."Two scouts returned from Linewatch. Both are barely alive. We have sent for Orasmus the healer."My jaw tightened. Sending for the healer meant it was bad.The fortress around us remained quiet. Most of the household was rounding up for the

Chapter Twenty-four: Thompson’s

SIGRUN Seven Days Later... I was bored out of my mind, and it wasn't the normal kind of bored. Not even a "there's nothing good on Net.flix" bored. I'm talking trapped-in-a-massive-mountain-fortress-without-WiFi-and-my-werewolf-husband-had-disappeared-into-the-northern-wilderness-a-week-ago-without-informing-me bored. There was a difference. A very important difference. For one thing, normal boredom usually didn't involve several hundred thousand square feet of gothic architecture. Seriously, Pillak Towers was so enormous that after three days of exploring, I still wasn't entirely convinced I'd seen all of the east wing. There were corridors that seemed to exist purely because somebody's ancestor had looked at a perfectly reasonable wall and decided, "Um, you know what this needs? Another hallway." There were staircases that led to other staircases. There was an entire gallery dedicated to dead Northerners that glared judgmentally out of oil paintings. I was almost certain th

Chapter Twenty-five: New Friend?

SIGRUN A stable hand was already waiting in the courtyard beside my mare. The sight of her immediately improved my mood. Never thought there’d come a day where I missed a horse, but here we were. She lifted her head the moment she spotted me, ears perking forward, and nudged my shoulder as I approached. “Someone missed me.” Her warm breath puffed against my cheek. I scratched the white patch between her eyes and frowned thoughtfully. “I need a name for you.” Something that didn’t sound like I had stolen it from a children’s storybook. Unfortunately, my imagination had failed me completely. “Maybe it’ll come to me eventually.” A throat cleared behind me. I turned and immediately remembered that I wasn’t simply riding into town by myself. Two huge men stood several feet away. Each sat atop a massive black horse with a wolf banner inscribed in silver. The wolves were identical to the one on my pendant. It was obviously Varul’s crest. Neither of the men spoke nor sm

Chapter Twenty-six: Surprise

“What does that mean?” I asked. “What tale?” What the hell had the Northerners been saying about me? I was curious as hell. I'd thought that they were above gossip. Elara simply laughed nervously and righted a supply that was askew on a shelf. “It is nothing too damning, I assure you,” she said with a slight wave of her hand. “Just that no one had seen you out and about ever since the Alpha brought you to the North. So, you know, it reinforced the rumors.” I narrowed my eyes. “What rumors?” She had the grace to look uncomfortable. “Well, that you…the Southern princess from Windsmoor…is a, well, my apologies, but there is no softer way to say this…” she exhaled, “a noble snob. Like most Southern nobles are.” I blinked and raised a brow. Huh. Coming out had been a really good idea, after all. People thought I was being a snobby bitch by staying indoors, when in reality I had spent the last seven days trying to adapt in a new environment, in a castle that was as big as a

Chapter Twenty-seven: The Alpha’s Return

SIGRUN I blinked at his tone. Uh, EXCUSE ME? "I...beg your pardon?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. We were practically at the center of the courtyard, and he was raising his voice at me when he was the one who left? He leaned into me and repeated, "I said, where the fuck are you coming from?" For a second, I just stared at him. The audacity. The absolute, breathtaking audacity of this man who had brought a new wife to his home and promptly disappeared for seven days without a single word to her. Then he suddenly materialized back home, and somehow I was the one being interrogated? Yeah, I didn't think so. Alpha or not, I didn't care. Where I came from, respect was an important part of any relationship. Especially marriage. The fact that I wasn't from here didn't mean I had to stroke his giant male ego. I snorted, a derisive sound that was void of humor. "That's amusing. That's REALLY amusing,” I said, briefly glancing away and swiping a thumb across my bottom lip

Chapter Twenty-eight: A Council of Ravens

SIGRUN “Yes, your hatred for me was communicated perfectly through that kiss,” he said drily. “Ugh, you’re insufferable.” I scoffed and shoved at his chest, needing to put some distance between us. But of course he didn’t even budge. He smirked, but soon the amusement in his eyes faded and he turned sober. His eyes searched my face as though he was committing my features to his memory. Something strange tugged at my heart. “The North is no longer safe, Princess. Our borders were attacked a week ago. I lost good men.” The fight slowly went out of me as soon as his words landed. People had died. “Is…Is that why you had to leave that night?” I asked softly. He nodded. “Yes. We had to make it to the border as soon as possible. I spent the rest of that night on strategy discussions with my men. It is why I couldn’t come back to you. I should have informed you before we rode out. Or sent a message across while on the way. I was wrong. In the future, I will make sure to keep

Chapter Twenty-nine: Velvet and Venom

SIGRUN I had been in the North for long enough to accept that giant wolves existed, but not long enough to stop mentally screaming about it. And tonight, apparently, I was meeting the people who helped govern them. No pressure. None at all. I stared at my reflection for what had to be the fiftieth time. The woman staring back at me looked nothing like the Sigrún I knew. Rita had transformed me into a person who looked as though she belonged in a fantasy movie with an unnecessarily large budget. The dress was deep blue silk, soft beneath my fingers and embroidered with silver threads that shimmered like frost. My hair had been braided back from my face with tiny silver pins worked into it. I looked expensive. But dressing like royalty and being royalty were two very different things. And if there was one thing I had learned since arriving in this world, it was that the North took its titles very seriously. A knock sounded at the door. My stomach immediately attempted to m

Chapter Thirty: The Fragile Treaty

SIGRUN If I thought the dinner toast fiasco was as bad as it could get, the formal council session that followed proved me hilariously, dangerously wrong. The plates had been cleared by a small army of neutral-faced stewards, but the thick scent of spilled wine and raw, apex-predator adrenaline still hung thick in the air. Lord Halvar sat rigidly across from me, his expression carved from stone. He hadn’t looked at me once since Varul threatened to feed him and his entire pack to the crows. I hadn’t looked at him either. The memory of his face morphing into a bloodthirsty beast would probably haunt me for the rest of my natural life. For the rest of this frightening dinner, it was best to pretend he didn’t exist. “The eastern watchtowers require additional supplies,” Lord Eirik was saying, tapping a blunt finger against a map on the table. “The roads will be snowed over within six weeks.” “Five,” Elder Nola corrected. Eirik frowned. “Five if winter arrives early.” “It alw

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