Chapter 4

Vane

The tribute house smelled like too many strangers packed into too little space.

I'd been here since Cain's housekeeper dragged me from his hallway. Six rooms, twelve tributes from six different packs, some of them there for months. They whispered about rules, routines, which hallways to avoid after dark.

I didn't care about any of that.

The girl in the next room cried most nights. Quiet sobs, muffled by a pillow. I'd knocked once. She'd told me to go away.

Cain hadn't come to find me. Hadn't sent for me. Not a single message since he told me to get out of his room with coffee dripping from his jaw.

Good.

His silence was exactly what I'd wanted. If I played this right, stayed invisible, stayed boring, maybe he'd forget about me entirely. And once an alpha forgot about a tribute, she was as good as free.

My wolf, Ashen, disagreed.

You poured coffee on his head, she said. He's not going to forget that.

I pulled on the boots I'd found in the bottom of the closet they'd assigned me. They were a size too big, the laces frayed, but they were flat and sturdy and I could run in them. Better than those heels by a mile.

He could have done anything to us, Ashen continued. He just told us to leave.

"Which I did. Gladly."

You're thinking about his eyes again.

I wasn't. I grabbed a jacket from the back of the chair. Thin canvas, not much, but it covered the red dress I still hadn't been able to replace. Nobody in the tribute house had spare clothes my size.

The hallway was dark. Everyone else was asleep. I slipped down the back stairs and out through the kitchen door.

The night hit me like cold water. Clear sky, sharp wind, the full moon hanging so low it looked close enough to touch. The forest started a hundred yards from the tribute house, the tree line pressing right up against the settlement.

I headed for the trees. The forest floor was soft under my boots, pine needles and old leaves, the kind of ground that swallowed sound.

Finally, Ashen said. I've been going crazy in that house. I need to run.

She'd been restless since we arrived. A wolf could only stay human for so long before the walls started pressing in. And tonight was different. The full moon pulled at something deep in my chest, a tug I felt in my bones.

Full moons always made Ashen restless. Tonight, trapped in enemy territory, it felt almost unbearable.

Ashen practically vibrated. Do you think he's out there somewhere? Our mate? What does he look like?

I ducked under a low branch and kept walking. The pine trees closed in around me, dense and dark, their scent sharp enough to taste.

"I don't know. And right now, I don't care."

Liar. You've been wondering since you turned eighteen.

Every full moon since my first shift, I'd wondered. Every month, nothing.

"If he exists," I said, "he'd better not be anything like Cain Corvus."

Cain is handsome, Ashen said. What if our mate looks like him?

I stopped walking. "Ashen."

What? He is. You noticed. I was there when you noticed.

"I don't care if my mate is handsome." I stepped over a root.

"I need someone I can actually talk to. Someone who'd spar with me without holding back because I'm female. Someone who gets why I fight."

I'd spent my whole life proving I belonged on the patrol line. Every promotion earned twice, once by performance and once by argument. My mate needed to understand that.

"Cain is the opposite of that."

But his jaw—

"I don't care about his jaw."

And his shoulders. And how he smells. Cedar and—

"He smells like conquest and terrible decisions."

Ashen went quiet for half a second. Then she switched tactics.

Darkmoon is well-managed. Have you noticed? The grounds are clean, the houses are maintained, the tribute house has hot water and good locks. The wolves here look healthy.

I brushed pine needles off my sleeve. She wasn't wrong. Even in the few hours I'd been here, I could tell Darkmoon ran tighter than most territories I'd seen.

The streets were maintained. The wolves I'd glimpsed through windows looked well-fed. No pack ran this smoothly without a strong alpha.

"Fine," I said. "He's a competent alpha. That doesn't mean I like him."

I didn't say you had to like him.

"Good. Because I don't."

You're blushing.

"I'm cold. There's a difference."

I reached the clearing where the forest thickened and the moonlight barely reached the ground. Far enough. No patrols, no scent markers I recognized.

I unclasped the necklace and tucked it into my jacket pocket. Then I stripped and folded my clothes at the base of a wide oak, the jacket on top with the necklace safe inside.

The shift came fast. Pain first, then release. Bones cracking and reshaping, spine arching, hands splitting into paws. It hurt every time and every time I loved it.

When it was over, I stood on four legs. Silver fur caught the moonlight where it filtered through the canopy. My coat was rare among wolves. Most were brown, gray, black. I was silver from nose to tail, bright enough to look like something out of a legend.

I liked the way I looked.

Ashen surged forward, taking the lead. Our senses sharpened. Heartbeats of small animals. Wind through branches two hundred yards away. The creak of roots deep in the soil.

We ran.

The pines opened up ahead, their trunks spreading wider as the ground rose. I could feel every stone and root through my paw pads, the cold air splitting around my muzzle.

Ashen pushed harder, faster, and I let her. This was what we both needed. No tribute house. No alpha. No red dress or broken heels. Just speed and dark earth and the moon above us pulling us forward.

I hadn't run like this since the night before the siege. My muscles burned and it felt like breathing for the first time in days.

Then Ashen stopped.

Her ears snapped forward. Her nose lifted. Every muscle in our body locked.

Vane.

"What?"

I smell him. Her voice shook. Fatedmate. He's here.

The scent hit me a second later. Rich and deep. It wrapped around my ribs and squeezed.

He's coming toward us.