At the treeline, where the path begins its descent toward the canyon, I stop and turn back.
The fortress rises behind us, gray stone against gray sky. And there, on the battlements, a single figure wrapped in furs. Watching. Waiting.
Even at this distance, I feel her watching. The thread between us pulls taut across the frozen landscape.
I lift my head and howl.
The sound splits the dawn, rising into the heavy clouds and echoing off the mountains. Let Korren's wolves hear it. Let them know we are coming and that we do not come quietly, skulking through the shadows like cowards. Let the sound burrow into their spines and settle there, cold and heavy, so that when they see us emerge from the treeline, their legs are already trembling. Fear is a weapon, and I wield it as surely as fang and claw.
Behind me, the pack takes up the call, voice after voice joining until the valley rings with our declaration. Dozens of wolves, hundreds of throats lifted to the sky, a war cry that will reach Korren's camp long before we do. Let him hear the size of the force coming for him. Let him wonder if his numbers are enough.
The last echo fades into the silence of snow and wind. I turn away from the fortress and lead my wolves into the canyon, toward the battle that waits at the end of the path.
I do not look back again. I do not need to. I carry her with me, the memory of her warmth, the taste of her skin, the sound of her voice whispering my name in the dark. She is the reason I fight. The reason I will win.
Korren has no idea what's coming for him.
11
IRIS
Ihave never felt so helpless in my life.
The man I—the man who matters is fighting a war I cannot see, somewhere beyond the mountains where the canyon narrows and blood soaks into snow. All I can do is stand on these battlements and wait, my hands gripping the cold stone until my knuckles ache, while something I do not fully understand pulses beneath my ribs like a second heartbeat.
The bond. Incomplete, unfinished, a thread stretched thin between us rather than the rope it will become when he finally bites me. But even incomplete, it lets me feel him. Rage burns through the connection, hot and metallic, the fury of an alpha unleashed. Beneath that, a desperate focus that narrows the world to fangs and claws and the enemy in front of him. He is fighting. He is winning.
And then pain lances through my side like a blade of ice, and I double over against the parapet with a cry I cannot suppress.
"Iris." Signe's hand closes on my arm, steadying me. The healer has been my shadow since the pack marched at dawn, watching me with those pale eyes that miss nothing. "What is it?"
"He's hurt." The words come out strangled. I press my palm against my ribs where the phantom pain still throbs, fading now but leaving echoes I can taste in the back of my throat. Blood and copper and the sharp tang of adrenaline. "Something hit him. Cut him. I felt it."
Signe's expression does not change, but something in her posture changes. A settling, as though she expected this moment and prepared for it long before it arrived.
"This is what bonding means," she says quietly. "Even incomplete, the connection carries sensation. Strong emotion. Physical trauma." Her grip on my arm tightens briefly before releasing. "You will feel his death if it comes. As he would feel yours."
The words land like stones dropped into still water, sending ripples through everything I thought I understood about what I agreed to when I let him touch me. When I went to his chambers and asked for all of him. I knew the bond would change things. I did not know it would turn me into a vessel for his pain, a witness to wounds I cannot see or treat or prevent.
I straighten slowly, forcing my breathing to steady. The pain has faded to a dull ache, which means his wound is not mortal. He is still fighting. Still alive.
"How do you bear it?" I ask. "The wolves with mates. How do they function when their bondmate is in danger?"
"They don't." Signe moves to stand beside me at the parapet, her gaze fixed on the distant mountains where smoke has begun to rise in thin columns against the gray sky. "A bonded wolf whose mate is threatened becomes something else entirely. Feral. Single-minded. Capable of things they would never attempt in their right mind." She pauses. "It is why Korren fears you more than he fears Stellan's army. A bonded alpha is unpredictable. An alpha fighting for his omega is unstoppable."
I want to believe her. I want to believe that Stellan will carve through Korren's forces and come home to me covered in victory and his enemies' blood. But the ache in my ribs reminds me that he is not invincible. That somewhere in that canyon, wolves are dying, and he could be next.
The morning crawls past in agonizing increments. I pace the battlements until my legs burn, then pace the great hall until Signe forces me to sit and eat something I cannot taste. The partial bond pulses with sensation I struggle to interpret. Fury gives way to grim satisfaction. Pain flares and fades. Once, a spike of something that feels like triumph makes my heart race before it subsides into the steady burn of sustained combat.
He is alive. He is fighting. That is all I know, and it is not enough.
The messenger arrives just past midday.
I hear the commotion before I see it. Shouts from the outer wall, the heavy groan of the gate mechanism, the thunder of hooves on frozen ground. Horses are faster than vehicles in the mountain passes, especially in winter when the roads become impassable. I am on my feet and running before Signe can stop me, my boots slipping on the icy stones as I race toward the courtyard where a horse has collapsed in a heap of lathered flanks and heaving sides.
The rider is barely conscious. Blood mats his hair and stains the crude bandage wrapped around his shoulder. Two of the household guards haul him upright while a third leads the exhausted horse away, and I push through the gathering crowd until I can see his face.
"What happened?" I demand. "The battle. Tell me."
