Tobias managed a weak shrug. "It seemed like the right thing to do."
Erasmus stared at him for a long moment. Then he did something Tobias had never seen a wolfshifter Alpha do in all his years as an intermediary. He bowed his head.
"The blood pact stands," Erasmus said. "I will not release you from it, and my heirs will not release yours. The debt is real and it will one day be called." He raised his head, and the hard edge had left his gaze. "But when that day comes, whoever calls the debt will remember what a Carswell sacrificed for the Northern Pack. You have my word on that."
Tobias nodded, too exhausted to argue. He had lost his gift, mortgaged his descendants' futures, and nearly died. But the necromancers were defeated, the territory was safe, and his wife and unborn child would live.
Some prices were worth paying.
He drifted back into healing sleep, one hand pressed over his chest where the blood pact had settled like a second heartbeat. It would outlive him. He accepted that now. Wherever his bloodline traveled, whatever they became, they would carry this weight forward.
1
IRIS
The convoy stops at the base of the mountain, and I count the wolves flanking it. More than a dozen. They sent a small army of armed shifters to collect one human woman. Either I should be flattered, or I should be terrified.
The noise of the convoy dies, and the silence that follows is absolute. No birdsong. No wind through the pines. Even the forest knows better than to make noise in this territory. Through the tinted window, I watch the wolves fall into formation with military precision, their breath fogging in the mountain air. They wear armored gear and carry weapons that gleam with the dull sheen of silver. Every single one of them could tear me apart before I landed a single blow, but they brought guns anyway.
That tells me something important about the man waiting at the top of this mountain. He doesn't take chances.
The door opens, and cold air bites into me. One of the enforcers stands there, a mountain of muscle with a shaved head and a neck thicker than my thigh. He doesn't offer his hand to help me out. Good. I would have broken his fingers if he tried.
"Move," he says.
I take my time sliding across the leather seat, gathering my single bag, and stepping onto the frozen ground. My boots sink into the snow as I square my shoulders and lift my chin. Helena always said that wolves respond to posture before they respond to words. Never let them see you cower. Never let them smell your fear.
The fortress rises above me, black and brutal against the gray sky. Fenrir's Reach, they called it during the journey here. Three days of winding mountain roads, silent escorts, and rest stops where I was never left alone long enough to run. Not that running would have mattered. The blood pact would have dragged me back eventually, and the consequences of breaking it would have destroyed more than just me.
Black stone walls climb the mountainside in jagged tiers, the architecture a brutal fusion of medieval fortress and modern military compound. Narrow windows glow amber against the gray afternoon sky, and watchtowers punctuate the walls at regular intervals. The whole structure seems to grow from the granite itself, hostile and patient, as if the mountain had birthed it fully formed and waiting.
I count the visible guards. A handful on the walls. More at the main gate. The escort who brought me here. Enough wolves that I can see to make a small army, which means there are probably twice that many I can't. My grandmother's training kicks in automatically, cataloging entry points, defensive positions, and potential blind spots. The east tower sits slightly lower than the others, and the wall beneath it shows weathering that suggests age and possible structural weakness.
None of this information will help me escape. I know that. But the act of gathering it keeps my mind sharp and my panic at bay.
The wolves escort me through the main gate and into a courtyard that could hold a small army. More guards here, moresilver weapons, more eyes tracking my every step. A few of them don't bother hiding their curiosity. Others look at me with open hostility, their lips curling back from teeth that seem too sharp for human mouths. I keep my expression neutral and my stride steady. Let them look. Let them underestimate the human woman in their midst.
We enter the fortress through doors, that must weigh a thousand pounds each, and the temperature changes from bitter cold to oppressive warmth. Fireplaces the size of small rooms blaze along the corridor, filling the air with the scent of burning pine. Tapestries line the walls between them, depicting scenes of wolves hunting, fighting, and ruling. The history of a pack that has dominated this territory for centuries, rendered in thread and blood-red dye.
My escort stops before a set of double doors carved with an elaborate wolf's head, its eyes inlaid with something that catches the firelight and glows like molten gold. The shaved-head enforcer turns to face me.
"The Alpha will see you now."
The words settle heavy in my chest. The Alpha. Stellan Varen. The man who owns my future because of a contract signed long before my grandmother was born. The man who sent more than a dozen wolves to collect me like I was a package rather than a person. The man I am going to marry, whether I want to or not. I don't.
I take a breath, smooth my expression into something cold and unreadable, and nod once.
The doors swing open.
The Great Hall stretches before me, all dark stone and flickering torchlight. Pillars carved with wolf imagery support a ceiling lost in darkness, and torches flicker in iron sconces along the walls. The space is designed to intimidate, to make anyone who enters feel small and insignificant.
It works.
But I keep walking anyway, my boots echoing against the stone floor as I approach the far end of the hall. A raised dais dominates the space, and on it sits a throne carved from black obsidian that seems to drink the light. Ancient pack banners hang behind it, and weapons line the walls on either side, displayed like trophies.
The man on the throne doesn't move as I approach. He watches me with absolute stillness, the kind that belongs to something deadly waiting to strike. And despite every ounce of training Helena drilled into me, despite every mental preparation I made during those three endless days of travel, the sight of him steals the breath from my lungs.
Stellan Varen is not what I expected.
