Chapter 2

At seven, I began learning to control shifting.

My first shift at ten had been triggered involuntarily—agonizing, but at least it completed. Control was another matter. To shift freely between human and wolf forms, I had to master the force that tore bones apart, not be mastered by it. Other cubs started training at three or four. I was three years behind. Silver poison burned through every nerve; every voluntary shift felt like being ripped apart from the inside.

I writhed on the ground in pain. Ella crouched down and pressed my head still.

"Don't fight the pain. Pain tells you the shift is happening. Acknowledge it, then ride on top of it."

She watched over me for seven days.

When I woke, I was lying on the furs. She sat beside me, dark circles deep beneath her eyes. Another strand of white had appeared in her silver-gray hair.

"Little King." Her voice was soft. "Mama is here."

That was the only time she called herself that.

And the last.

Over those five years, I grew from a cub who could only shift involuntarily into a warrior who could control his form.

At twelve, I beat her in combat for the first time.

I pinned her to the training ground sand. Her hands were locked beneath mine, my knee on her waist. She didn't struggle. Her silver-gray eyes looked at me, so close I could see my own dark gold pupils reflected in hers.

"From now on, I'll protect you."

She twisted free, stood up, and brushed the sand off. No answer. She stepped back—not the flinching kind, but slow, as if measuring distance. Then she turned and kept brushing the sand from her clothes. She brushed for a long time.

"You did nothing wrong," she said. "You just grew up."

That step—I didn't understand it then.

Later, I did. She wasn't afraid of me. She was afraid of herself.

Three years later, I was a head taller than her.

At fifteen, Grayridge sent assassins.

Six adult wolves, speed-specialized Grayridge blood. A blizzard night, slipping into Silvermoon territory. Target: Ella—her prophecies had cost Grayridge three trade routes. The Grayridge Wolf King wanted her dead.

I learned this from the assassins' mouths—after I'd killed the first one.

Six assassins. Four of them I took down on the path from the patrol post to the stone hall. The patrol post was on the outer perimeter, the stone hall at the territory's heart, with three fences and two stone alleys between. I dropped the fifth at the end of the second alley, his body against the stone wall. Two more caught up at the stone hall entrance—one of them bit the back of my neck from behind, teeth sinking into flesh. I tore his lower jaw off with my bare hands. Before the last one could lunge, I was already standing at her door.

Covered in blood. Wounds on my back gaping, bone visible.

She opened the door.

"Are you hurt?" I asked.

She looked at me for a long time. Moonlight on her face; a third of her hair had turned white. Her lips parted—she wanted to say something, then swallowed it back.

"Come in. I'll stop the bleeding."

She didn't say thank you.

That night, her hands were steady as she dressed my wounds. She had always been like this—cool, rational, precise. I was her sharpest blade. A blade must not break. That was what she told herself.

That was what I believed, too.

But she never asked about the outpost. That had been months ago—a Grayridge outpost she'd sent me to scout for guard numbers. I'd gone, come back with minor injuries, two cracked ribs. She asked about the numbers first, then noticed the wounds.

I'd noticed the order. I chose to ignore it.

On the night of my sixteenth birthday, a blizzard sealed the mountains.

I shifted to wolf form and curled at her stone hall door. A black wolf with shoulders already higher than her waist, pure black coat, dark gold eyes. In all of Silvermoon, no one had ever seen my coat color. No precedent among half-blood wolves.

She was the only one who found it unremarkable.

She opened the door. Cold wind swept snow inside. She looked down at me.

"Why aren't you sleeping?"

"I was afraid you'd be cold."

She crouched. Her hand sank into the thick fur of my neck, disappearing deeper. Snow fell on her hair, on her eyelashes.

I waited for her to speak.

Her mouth opened—her lips moved twice. Then closed.

I recognized that shape. She nearly said, "Don't leave me."

She didn't say it.

The snow fell all night. I stayed all night. At dawn, she was still leaning against me—more white in her hair than the month before. I looked down at her, one thought in my mind.

She was mine.

If she didn't belong to me, she was still mine.

At dawn, she was still leaning against me. I looked at her for a long time, then closed my eyes. When I opened them again, sunlight was coming through the stone hall windows. She was gone.

Two days later, Ella summoned me to the stone hall.

Her expression was calm as usual. But her tone was different—a tone I'd heard before. She was making a decision she wasn't sure of.

"Bone Dragon Hollow. Tonight. You and me."

Bone Dragon Hollow. Ironback territory—the largest, strongest of the seven great clans. At the Hollow's bottom lay the Moon God's Tear—the crystal core left behind when the ancient Wolf King ascended. Swallowing it grants the power of the Alpha. The prophecy said: he who swallows it shall die at the Moon God's altar.

"Why?" I asked.

She looked at me strangely.

"That place has something to do with you. I need to confirm something."

After nightfall, we infiltrated Ironback territory. The Hollow's entrance was hidden beneath a cliff face, with three rotating Ironback guard shifts. I took down two patrols. She didn't use prophecies—this was a raid; she couldn't waste her life force on the road.

At the Hollow's bottom.

A crystal core floated above the stone altar. Silver light bled from within, illuminating the entire cavern. The air hummed with electric current. My skin tightened the moment I entered.

A guardian stood behind the altar.

Gray-black fur, shoulders wide enough to block half the stone platform. The Ironback Wolf King, Graysham.

Ella's biological father.

He looked at Ella. Then at me.

Then he smiled. A hunter's smile.

"I see now. You weren't raising a cub."

His gaze locked onto my pupils.

"You were harboring the Black Sun's remnant."