Chapter 8 Cedar and Copper

The grey stallion took two heavy, sinking steps into the deep snowdrift and stopped completely. The animal shivered violently beneath me, its head dropping toward its chest as the howling wind tore across the narrow mountain ledge. The blinding whiteout completely swallowed the path ahead. There was nowhere to go.

"Get off the horse, Lucien!" I gasped, my voice cracking from the bitter cold. "He can't carry us through this deep snow anymore. Move!"

Lucien grunted behind me on the saddle, his massive weight shifting heavily as he slid off. He hit the snow with a dull thump, his heavy boots sinking straight up to his shins. I scrambled down right after him, my bare feet hitting the freezing slush. The pain was instant, a sharp, burning sensation that went straight to my bones.

I grabbed the leather reins, tugging with everything I had left in my arms. "Come on, boy. Move! Just a little further!"

I dragged the horse against a massive, smooth frozen boulder that jutted out from the mountainside. It provided a tiny break from the roaring gale, but the temperature was plunging way below zero. I leaned my back against the cold stone, my hands shaking so hard I couldn't keep a proper grip on the leather straps. I looked down at my fingers. They were already turning a dull, unnatural blue around the tips. My teeth chattered together in a fast, uncontrollable rhythm.

"You're freezing to death," Lucien growled, his breath coming out in a thick cloud of white steam. He staggered toward me, his movements heavy and uncoordinated.

"I'm fine," I lied, my jaw so stiff the words barely formed.

"Don't be stupid, Evercrest," he snapped. He reached out with his uninjured arm, grabbed my shoulder, and yanked me straight against his chest.

"Let go of me," I muttered, trying to push my blue palms against his heavy leather coat.

"Shut up and lean back," he commanded, his deep voice vibrating right against my spine as he wrapped both of his massive arms completely around my shoulders, pinning me into his torso. "My Lycan beast is fighting the plague. My internal core is running at a feverish, burning heat. If you don't use it, your heart will stop before the storm clears."

The heat radiating off him was incredible. It felt like leaning against a roaring furnace, cutting straight through my soaked, tattered ritual gown. But as my skin began to thaw, his scent filled my nose. It was a heavy, thick mixture of cedar wood and sharp copper blood. I hated it. It smelled exactly like the elite alpha world that had locked me away.

"Comfortable?" Lucien muttered into my matted hair.

"I hate your smell," I said, my teeth finally stopping their chattering.

"It's the smell of survival right now," he replied, his grip tightening out of pure necessity. "So just breathe it in."

I remained still for a long moment, watching the white snow swirl violently past our small shelter. The burning brand on my collarbone still throbbed, but the heat from Lucien's body kept the frostbite at bay.

"Why didn't you save me?" I asked suddenly, the question cutting through the roar of the wind.

Lucien went completely rigid behind me. "What?"

"Seven years ago," I said, my voice cold and sharp as I stared into the whiteout. "At the ritual pavilion. You sat right there in the VIP box. You had an army. You had influence. You watched Brandon throw our engagement medal into the sewer. You watched King Corin strip my family name and call me a defect. Why didn't you step in?"

Lucien let out a long, ragged breath, his chest rising and falling heavy against my back. "I told you, the politics—"

"Don't give me that political garbage, Draven!" I snapped, trying to turn my head to glare at him, but his massive arms kept me locked in place. "You're the Tyrant of the North. You don't care about Corin's laws. Tell me the truth."

Lucien remained silent for three long seconds. When he finally spoke, his voice dropped to a low, shivering whisper right against my ear.

"Your father had a secret execution order ready, Nyra," he confessed.

My heart skipped a beat. "What?"

"High Priest Malakai knew you wouldn't shift," Lucien said, his grip on my shoulders turning like iron. "The priesthood wanted to publicly slaughter you on that stage the moment the clock struck twelve. They wanted to make an example of a wolfless elite to show the packs that the gods demand purity. Your father knew it. He came to me the night before the ritual."

"My father came to you?" I whispered, my mind spinning.

"He begged me not to interfere," Lucien said, his voice rough with old anger. "He told me that if I tried to fight the priesthood, it would start a civil war that would destroy both our territories. Locking you away in the North Tower was the only compromise he could force. King Corin agreed to it because it kept your father's vanguard loyal to his army. Locking you in that damp cell was the only way to keep Malakai from putting a knife through your throat in front of five thousand alphas."

I processed his words, the white snow blurring past my eyes. My father had traded my life for a prison sentence. He had saved me, but he had left me in the dark for seven years.

I pulled away from Lucien's chest slightly, my voice freezing over as I looked at the dark fabric of his coat.

"An honorable room is still a room, King," I said flatly.

"It kept you breathing," Lucien growled back, his grey eyes narrowing. "Which is more than your cousin Elena would—"

A deep, unnatural groan echoed from the snowdrift directly above our ledge.

The grey stallion let out a sharp, terrified shriek, pulling wildly at its reins as it tried to back away from the path.

The wall of white snow directly in front of us exploded outward. A massive, horrifying shape leaped straight out of the blizzard, landing heavily in the center of the narrow ledge, blocking our only exit.

It was a rogue wolf, but it wasn't normal. The plague had completely ravaged its body. Its skin was mostly gone, leaving raw, pink muscles exposed to the freezing air, dripping with dark, steaming copper blood. Its jaw was split open down the middle, its yellow fangs snapping wildly as a thick, black foam bubbled from its lips. Its eyes were completely milky white, devoid of any reason, maddened by the pain of its rotting internal beast.

The creature fixed its sightless, bleeding face directly onto us, letting out a raw, desperate howl that shook the loose ice from the boulder above.