My stomach clenched so hard it felt like it had licked from a sudden spasm. The bond screamed in my head; three voices at once, raw and overlapping. Darius's cold certainty that it wouldn't be him because a king doesn't fall first. Kane's silent vow to step forward and take the blade himself so the rest of us lived. Rylan's reckless laugh daring her to try because he'd rather burn the mountain down than let her pick. I felt all of it like it was my own blood boiling.
I stepped around Darius before any of them could move. My palm stayed pressed to my belly, shielding the small spark that had only existed for days but already felt like the only thing that was truly mine in this whole frozen nightmare. "No one dies today. Not for your games. You want blood price? Take mine. Cut what you need from me right now. My alpha line is older than their father's sins. That should break the curse clean without touching the child."
The witch's cracked-ice eyes narrowed. She leaned forward on her stool, staff tapping once against the stone floor. The red glow pulsed brighter. "Brave words from a girl who still smells like fresh claiming. The child is already woven into the curse. It carries three fathers and my old magic. You offer your blood alone and the wolves still go rogue. One of them has to pay with his life, or I take the firstborn at birth. Those are the terms I set twenty years ago. They don't and won't bend just because you bare your teeth."
Darius's hand landed heavy on my shoulder again, claws pricking through my cloak. "Then the terms change now." His voice stayed low, king-cold, but I felt the tremor under it; the wolf clawing closer to the surface. "We leave now. The bond bought us time. We'll find another way."
Kane said nothing. He just drew the long knife at his ribs, slow and deliberate, eyes locked on the witch like he was already measuring where to cut. Rylan shifted half a step in front of me, shoulders bunched, claws punching through his fingertips. "I volunteer. Take me. The other two keep her and the unborn child. Simple as that."
"No!" The word ripped out of me before I could stop it. I turned on Rylan, heart hammering so hard my vision tunneled. "You don't get to throw yourself away like that. None of you do. I didn't survive Marek and my father and that fucking wagon just to watch you three tear each other apart because some old woman wants payback."
The witch cackled, dry and scraping. "Very touching. But the curse doesn't care about your little speeches. The child quickens fast. You'll feel it kick by the next full moon. The kings will lose their minds with protective instinct; half-feral every time you so much as bruise. And when the moon turns red again, the madness returns unless one of them dies or I have the child. Choose quick, choose now. The snow won't wait forever."
I felt the bond surge hotter, feeding me flashes of their fear mixed with something sharper: the same rage I carried. Darius calculating escape routes and kill counts. Kane already planning how to slit his own throat clean so the rest of us lived. Rylan ready to laugh and charge her anyway. It all crashed into me at once, and for the first time the latent alpha blood didn't just stir. It roared.
I stepped straight up to the witch, close enough to smell the burned herbs on her breath. My hand left my belly and closed around the front of her cloak before anyone could stop me. "Then mark me instead. Right now. Take what you need from my blood and bind it to the curse. I'm the one the bond chose. I'm the one carrying their child. Make me the price, not them."
The witch's eyes widened a fraction. The staff flared brighter. She pressed the tip against my chest, right over my heart. Cold fire raced through my veins. I gasped, my knees buckling, but I didn't let go of her cloak. The bond screamed, Darius and Kane and Rylan all lunging forward at once but the witch raised her other hand which made them freeze mid-step like invisible chains had snapped tight around them.
"Bold," she whispered. "Foolish. But the old blood in you is strong. Stronger than I expected." She dragged the staff tip down, tracing a line from my heart to my belly. Pain followed, sharp and deep, like claws raking inside my ribs. I bit back a cry. The bond howled in my head, the brothers fighting whatever hold she had on them.
Then it stopped. The witch pulled the staff back. A thin red line glowed on my skin for a second before it sank under the surface. "It was a binding mark. The child stays yours… for now. But every full moon the curse will test you harder. If you weaken, if you let them protect you too much, the madness returns. And when the birth comes, I will be there. Refuse me then and one king still dies. That is the new price."
I staggered back. Darius caught me before I hit the floor, arms wrapping around me like iron. Kane and Rylan broke free of her hold and closed in on either side, growling low. The witch just smiled wider.
"Leave now. The snow is turning. Run back to your pretty hall and pretend you bought time. The child will remind you soon enough who really holds the leash."
Darius lifted me against his chest without asking. His heart hammered against my shoulder. "We're done here."
We went out of the hut together. The wind hit us like a slap the second we stepped outside. Snow had started falling heavier, thick flakes catching in my lashes. My chest burned where the mark sat, a low throb that matched the bond's pulse. I pressed my hand to my belly again. The spark was still there, small but fierce.
Rylan swung up onto his stallion first, eyes scanning the cliffs like he expected an attack. Kane mounted beside me, knife still out. Darius settled me in front of him on his horse, one arm locked around my waist, the other holding the reins.
We rode hard down the narrow path. The dead mountains loomed behind us. My shoulder still ached from Marek's claws, my body still raw from the claiming nights, but none of it compared to the new weight in my chest. A child. Their child. My child. And now the witch had her hooks in all of us.
Darius's breath brushed my ear as the horse picked its way down the trail. "You offered yourself for us…. Again."
I leaned back into him, letting the bond steady me. "I'm not letting her take what's ours. Not any of it."
Kane rode close on my other side. His storm-gray eyes flicked to my belly for a second, then away. "The mark she put on you. We'll find a way to break it too."
Rylan circled ahead, grin back but edged. "Next time we bring rope. I want to watch her scream before we burn that hut down."
The bond hummed between the four of us, tighter now, laced with something new; protectiveness that wasn't just the curse anymore. It was sharper. Meaner. Real.
By the time we reached the lower passes the snow had turned to sleet again. My body ached from the ride and the witch's magic, but I kept my spine straight. The child inside me wasn't even big enough to show yet, but I already felt it changing everything. The brothers rode like men guarding something sacred and dangerous at the same time.
We made camp that night in a shallow cave. Fire crackling low. The brothers took turns keeping watch, hands never far from their weapons. I lay between them under the cloaks, Darius's palm resting low on my belly like he could shield the baby from the whole world.
Sleep came in fits. I dreamed of red snow and tiny claws and the witch laughing while three wolves tore each other apart trying to reach me.
I woke before dawn with the bond buzzing under my skin like a warning. My hand flew back to my belly. The spark was stronger now, a faint flutter I wasn't sure was real or just fear.
Darius felt it too. His arm tightened around me. "We ride faster today. We'll be at Frostfang by nightfall if we push."
Kane was already saddling the horses. Rylan stamped out the fire, eyes on the trail ahead.
We broke camp in silence. The dead mountains faded behind us, but the witch's words clung tighter than the cold. One full moon. One chance to find another way. Or one of them died. Or she took the child.
I pressed my palm harder against my belly and told the small life inside me the only thing I could.
"We're not giving you up. Not to her. Not to anyone."
The bond answered with a surge of heat and teeth and three wolves ready to burn the North down to keep that promise.
But as we crested the next ridge, a new sound drifted up from the valley below. That of hoofbeats. Too many. And the faint, unmistakable scent of Shadowpine smoke on the wind.
Apparently, my father didn't wait.
[Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and the child in her belly grew stronger with each passing night…]