I woke to the taste of iron and the scrape of stone against my cheek.
The cell smelled of piss and wet rot. My wrists burned where the silver cuffs had rubbed. I struggled to push myself up on one elbow and stared at my hands. Blood had dried and turned black between my fingers and under my nails. It was Lila's blood...
My sister had laughed at the feast the night before, wine glass raised high, cheeks flushed from the dancing and celebration. I remembered the exact moment her eyes went wide. The exact second the cup slipped from her fingers and shattered on the packed dirt floor. Then screams. Then the pack closing in.
A heavy boot kicked the bars. I flinched before I could stop myself. It was my father. He stood outside the cell, arms crossed, face carved from the same stone as the walls.
Gamma Voss. The man who used to carry me on his shoulders when I was small enough to fit there.
"You killed her," he said. Flat. No shake in his voice.
"I didn't. I could never do that to my sister, believe me, Dad." My throat felt like it had been scoured with sand. "I handed her the cup. That's all. Someone else —"
"Save it for the council." He spat on the floor between the bars. "They already decided. You're done, Elena. The pack doesn't carry traitors!"
I laughed once, a cracked sound that hurt coming out. "Traitors? I spent my whole life cleaning up after your mistakes. Who covered for you when you lost the border patrol last spring? Who lied to the alpha when you came home smelling of human whiskey and cheap women?"
His hand shot through the bars faster than I expected and his fingers locked around my jaw, squeezing until my teeth cut the inside of my cheek.
"You were always too sharp for your own good. That's why they picked you. Easy scapegoat. You've got human blood in your veins, a weak wolf scent. No one will miss you when you're gone!"
He let go after his little play. I stayed on my knees, breathing so hard through my nose so I wouldn't cry in front of him. I tasted blood again, it was fresh this time. That's exactly why I needed; it kept me angry.
Hours bled past and eventually the guards came at dusk with chains. They didn't bother being gentle with me. One of them, Marek, the same bastard who used to leer at me during training, yanked my arms behind my back and clicked the manacles tight. The silver bit deep. My skin hissed.
"You're going to the North, murderer," Marek grunted. "To the Blackthorn brothers. They'll rip you apart before the week's out. Feral fucks. Their whole territory's cursed."
I didn't answer. I let them gloat and drag me through the corridors, past the feast hall still stinking of spilled wine, blood and death and past the spot where Lila had fallen. The blood had been scrubbed but the stain remained, darker than the rest of the floor.
I stared at it with tears in my eyes until the guards shoved me forward again.
Outside, snow had started falling. Thick snow flakes caught in my lashes. The transport wagon was waiting, iron bars on the sides, no roof and two black horses stamped and blew steam in the cold dawn.
I climbed in without being told. My bare feet went numb on the frozen planks. The wagon rolled out of Shadowpine under a low gray sky. I sat with my back to the driver, my knees drawn up, arms aching from the angle of the chains.
I watched the trees slide past and tried to remember the last time anyone in the pack had looked at me like I mattered. My mother had died giving birth to Lila. My father had never forgiven either of us for it. The rest of the pack followed his lead. They called me names and said all sort of hurtful things to me. "Human-tainted. Useful for chores, useless for anything that counted." Among many others.
I closed my eyes and let the wagon's jolts rock through me. The bond I didn't know existed yet hummed somewhere deep in my chest, faint as a half-heard howl. In the north, something waited there. Something that would either end me or remake me.
By the time we reached the first ridge, the snow had turned to sleet. Marek rode beside the wagon on a black gelding horse, his cloak pulled tight. He kept glancing at me like he was deciding whether to stop and take what he wanted before the North got its turn.
"You know what they say about the Blackthorns?" he said over the wind. "Their wolves don't shift back anymore. They just stay half-mad, knotting anything that moves until it breaks."
I lifted my head. Rain ran down my face like tears I refused to shed. "Then they'll have to kill me quick because I don't break easy."
Marek laughed. The sound died fast in the sleet.
I didn't know it yet, but three pairs of eyes already tracked the wagon from the ridges above. Darius, Kane, and Rylan who I'd later learn their names had felt the pull the moment the chains first closed around my wrists two hundred miles south. Their wolves paced inside their ribs, snarling for the mate the curse had finally delivered.
The wagon kept rolling north. I kept my eyes on the darkening trees and told myself I would survive whatever came next. I had no idea I was riding straight into the only place that would ever feel like home again.
The first howl split the night an hour later. It was low and ragged. Three voices braided together.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
The sound wasn't threat. It was recognition.
And at that moment, I didn't know whether to scream or found a way to escape.