The wagon stopped.
The brothers were already waiting.
I felt them before I saw them. Three presences hit me like a fist to the sternum.
I took the first step and the world narrowed to the three men standing there. Snow crunched under my bare feet. Blood from my wrists dripped onto the white ground in perfect red coins. The Frostfang gates had already swung shut behind the wagon with a sound like a tomb sealing.
Marek jumped down and bowed low, voice tight. "Tribute from Shadowpine, my kings. The girl who murdered her sister. She's… difficult."
Darius didn't look at him. His gaze stayed on me. "Unchain her."
The order cracked like a whip. Tor fumbled with the keys. The silver cuffs fell away. I stood on legs that threatened to fold. Blood dripped from my wrists onto the snow. I lifted my chin anyway.
Darius stood dead center. Ice-blue eyes tracked every limp in my walk. The iron crown sat low on his forehead, dark hair brushing the collar of his cloak. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. The bond slammed into my chest like a second heart kicking to life.
Kane flanked him on the left. Scars ran across his knuckles like white lightning. His fingers flexed once, slow, the way a man checks a blade before he uses it. Storm-gray eyes flicked to the torn ear on Marek's head, then back to my mouth. Something that might have been approval tightened the corner of his lips.
Rylan took the right side. Broken nose, reckless grin, amber eyes bright as fresh blood. He looked like he wanted to laugh at the mess I was and fuck me at the same time.
The bond didn't ask permission. It roared. My skin pulled tight. Heat flooded low in my belly, sharp and wrong and impossible to ignore. I was half-dead from the journey, ribs cracked, lip split, and still my body answered them like it had been waiting twenty-three years for exactly this.
Darius spoke first, voice low enough to rumble in my bones. "Elena Voss. Gamma's daughter. Framed for your sister's murder. Sent north to die."
I stopped three paces away. "They didn't send me to die. They sent me to you. Figured you'd finish the job."
Rylan laughed once, sharp. "She's got teeth."
Kane said nothing. He stepped forward, boots silent on the snow, and caught my chin between two scarred fingers. Tilted my face up. His thumb brushed the split in my lip. The touch burned. The bond flared hotter.
"You bit a man's ear off," he said. Flat. Like he was reading a report.
"He put his hands where they didn't belong."
Kane's thumb pressed harder. Pain flared, but I didn't pull away. His eyes darkened. "Good."
Darius moved then. One step and he filled the space between us. Pine and blood and cold metal rolled off him. He leaned in until his breath brushed my ear. "Inside. Now."
The great hall doors opened. Warmth and torchlight spilled out. I walked between them because the bond left me no choice. My legs shook but I kept my head up. The long tables on either side were empty. Only a handful of wolves watched from the shadows, eyes glowing. They knew what this was.
The brothers didn't sit me at the table. They walked me straight through to the wide stone stairs at the back. No one spoke. The only sounds were boots on flagstone and the wet drip of blood from my wrists.
At the top landing Darius stopped. He turned, caught me by the waist, and lifted me like I weighed nothing. My back hit the wall. His body pinned me there. Kane and Rylan closed in on either side.
"You smell like fear and rage and us," Darius said against my throat. His teeth scraped the skin there. "The curse has been eating us alive for twenty years. Six months left before we turn rogue and burn the North to ash. You're the only thing that stops it."
My breath hitched. "I didn't ask for this."
Rylan's hand slid up my thigh, under the torn dress. "Doesn't matter. The bond already chose."
Kane's fingers found the back of my neck, thumb pressing the knot of tension there. "Fight if you want. It won't change what happens tonight."
The first real wave of heat crashed over me. Not gentle. Not kind. It felt like my blood had turned to molten silver. My hips jerked against Darius without my permission. A low sound tore out of my throat.
Darius smiled against my skin. It wasn't kind either. "Chambers. Now."
They carried me the rest of the way. Three sets of hands, three different grips, all of them sure. The royal chambers took up the entire north wing. Massive bed piled with furs. Fire roaring in a hearth big enough to roast a deer. Windows looking out over the frozen ridges where the howls had come from.
They set me down on the rug in front of the fire. My knees hit the wolf pelts. I stayed there, breathing hard, while they circled me.
Darius shed his cloak first. Then his shirt. Scars crossed his chest like a map of every war he'd won. Kane followed, revealing the knife sheath strapped to his ribs. Rylan stripped laughing, the sound low and hungry.
My mouth went dry. The bond screamed at me to open my legs, to bare my throat, to give them everything. The human part of me—the part that had just bitten a man's ear off rather than break—wanted to make them earn it.
I lifted my chin. "If you want me, you take me bloody and pissed off. I'm not some meek tribute."
Darius dropped to his knees in front of me. Ice-blue eyes locked on mine. "Good. We don't want meek."
His hand slid between my thighs. Two fingers pushed inside me without warning. I gasped. The stretch burned. The bond lit up like wildfire.
Kane knelt behind me, mouth at the back of my neck. Rylan took my left wrist and licked the blood from it like it was wine.
The night had only just started.
I didn't get a second to breathe.
Darius curled his fingers deeper, crooked them, found the spot that made my hips jerk against his hand. The fire crackled beside us. Heat on one side, cold stone on the other, and three feral alphas closing in like wolves on a fresh kill.
I grabbed his wrist, nails digging in. "Wait—"
"No." His voice stayed calm. The king who had already decided. He pumped his fingers once, twice, slick sounds loud in the quiet room. "The bond doesn't wait. Neither do we."
Kane's teeth closed on the junction of my neck and shoulder. Not hard enough to break skin yet, but the promise was there. Rylan caught my other wrist, pinned it to the furs above my head. His free hand shoved the torn dress up to my waist. Cold air hit my bare skin.
I should have been terrified. Instead the latent thing in my blood: the alpha blood my pack had buried woke up snarling. I bucked against Darius's hand and felt myself clench around his fingers. A moan slipped out before I could kill it.
Rylan laughed against my ear. "Hear that? She's already dripping for us."
Darius pulled his fingers free, held them up so I could see how wet they were. Then he licked them clean while he stared straight into my eyes. The sight punched low in my gut.