Noemi’s eyes water with distress, and she averts her gaze as if ashamed. She yanks her hand away from mine and stumbles back, breathing hard.
“I am so sorry,” Meryn says, moving to Noemi’s side. “I hate the idea of forcing a command on anyone. I would never, in any other circumstances. I only did that because I thought I had to—”
Noemi holds up a hand, cutting Meryn off. Her face is more composed, but her hand still shakes with a slight tremor.
“It’s fine,” she says softly. “Thank you.”
Noemi looks pale and almost breakable. Her years at the front have helped rebuild her confidence and fortitude. But suddenly, she looks dangerously close to the person she was when she emerged from the Trials.
“We’ll have to take our wolves out for that run another time, Valstark,” she says, speaking to the snow more than to me. “I think I need to lie down for a while.”
Ephyse comes up behind her, nosing at her hair, and Noemi turns and sinks her face into his shaggy fur, winding her arms around his neck. Familial protectiveness still burns in my chest as I watch the two of them head into the castle.
What must it be like to be cut off from your pack, your Alpha?
“Barely any Phylax from the front resisted the order,” Cratos growls, his burning indignation matching mine.“The wolves of our Gammas report that whole units of Phylax have just… left.”
I turn to Meryn, who is also watching Noemi depart, an unreadable expression on her face. “I appreciate your help,” I tell her gruffly. “Noemi… she’s like family to me.”
Meryn’s hazel eyes meet mine. “Just family?”
There’s a deeper question there. I know how it must look to her. But better she thinks that Noemi and I are involved. Better to shut any doors that might be perilous if left open.
“I love her,” I tell Meryn truthfully, feeling my heart clench. She makes a small noise of acknowledgment in the back of her throat. “What’s happened?”
She sighs. Anassa has padded back over now, and Meryn leans against her for support. “I don’t know. I don’t understand. Alpha Tormun was so confident he was going to capture Killian.Howdid Killian and Alistair manage to sway him? To tear an entire pack from us?”
My fingers itch to reach out to her, to smooth the worry from her brow. What an irritating urge.
Instead, I grab her wrist, touching the sliver of skin that peeks out from under her jacket. She startles at the contact. The warmth of her skin sears my fingertips, coursing through me until a heat builds low in my gut.
I use it to fuel my rage. “When we eventually capture Tormun—and we will,” I growl, getting worked up, “I’m going to decapitate him and put his head on a spike outside the Bonded City. It’ll serve as a warning to all the other Bonded: You don’t go against pack rule. We answer to one authority alone: Queen Meryn Sturmfrost.”
Her mouth drops open in surprise, and then she lets out a light laugh, her cheeks coloring. “Wow. I hate to say it, but that kind of turned me on. Does Noemi enjoy it when you talk dirty like that?”
Her words shoot straight to my cock, and I drop her wrist, swallowing hard. It fuckingstingsthat she thinks Noemi and I are together.
But it needs to stay that way.
“Stark,” Meryn says, and the sound of my name on her lips imprints itself on my mind. It takes me a moment before I hear what she’s saying. “Your mother has called a war council, of all the Alphas. The… remaining Alphas.”
Sighing, I follow her back into the castle.
We convene in the room that Meryn uses for her Council Palast meetings, large enough to accommodate at least a dozen riders and their wolves as necessary. Anassa and Cratos take up guard positions around the perimeter.
As Siegrid, Egith, and Hannelore file in, Meryn stares at maps of Nocturna. There are tactical maps of the front, maps showing terrain, and maps that detail past campaigns, all spread out in a complex tableau across the huge oak table.
I sit to her left, watching as her expression grows more and more overwhelmed, further stoking my flaming anger at Phylax and fucking Alpha Tormun.
Egith takes the lead as the Strategos Alpha. “Well, as of course we know, Phylax forms the backbone of our defense. They are—theywere—positionedat all the most critical vulnerabilities, places where we know the Siphons are most likely to try to push our forces back.”
Egith’s mouth is a pressed line, her eyebrows drawn together in thought as she paces over to stand behind Meryn, gesturing at the map directly in front of her on the table.
“However, we still have the majority of our Daemos forces in these areas as well, and plenty of foot soldiers. In a skirmish with Astreona, they should still be able to hold their own. Lately, though, a large concentration of the Phylax pack has been maintaining defenses around the village of Weisenstat, east of Grunfall.”
Meryn’s eyebrows rise. “Isn’t that where we grow the majority of Nocturna’s wheat?”
Siegrid jumps in. “Yes, it’s a critical farming area for multiple crops. If the Siphons overtake the town and destroy the harvest, the grain supply for the entire country will be decimated.”
