Chapter 1

Three years ago, my legs were broken by the black bear.

Now, my beast-husband brought back a female from the border.

Once again, unable to express my anger, I resorted to whipping our son with an iron whip to inflict pain on my husband. Suddenly, a golden light flashed in my mind.

It was the Mother Goddess. "Foolish guy, how dare you treat your own cubs like this?"

"Your punishment is imminent. You are unworthy of your beast-husband husband's love. The true mate for this male is about to arrive."

"Your destiny is already arranged. Your cubs will see you as a stranger. Your lovers and family will abandon you. You will be banished from this bountiful land. The frozen wilderness will be the only place to shelter your broken body."

My hand trembled.

I looked instinctively toward the sire and cub standing before me — both wore the same expression, cold and flat as hammered iron.

When they saw me lower the whip, both sets of brows furrowed in unison. They were waiting for the screaming to continue.

I pulled my neck in and forced a dry laugh.

"Dravik," I said, "you want to take a second female — I accept."

Silence swallowed the room whole.

Dravik, son of the Stoneclaw line, raised his head and looked at me. There was a flicker of something in his eyes.

The realization struck me at once.

A male like him would never allow a female he cared for to enter as a lower-ranked claim. That would be beneath her in his eyes.

So I waved a generous hand. "You want to bring her in as an equal claim? That's fine too. I don't care either way."

Dravik's brow furrowed deeper.

He was still kneeling, though his spine never curved — straight as a siege post, wearing the particular expression he reserved only for me: barely-concealed impatience.

"Mira." He used my name like a blade. "What game are you playing now?"

"Is this another scheme to get the Pack-Lord to strip my power?"

I opened my mouth. Before I could speak, my cub — Dravik's and mine — cut in with his usual flat, measured voice. Sorren was eight years old, and he had not looked at the welt-marks rising on his arms from my whip. He might as well have been discussing the weather.

"Dam," Sorren said, "are you finished striking me?"

"If you are, I'll take my leave. My studies are waiting."

The golden light flashed again. The Mother Goddess spoke.

"You see it, don't you? Your cub cannot bear to remain in the same room as you."

"Three years of your rages have burned away every last thread of his love for you."

"Do not imagine you can use my chosen female's arrival to run weeping to the Pack-Lord and punish your beast-husband. That road is already closed. Your blood-brother's patience for you ran dry long before your legs did."

I pressed my lips together.

My blood-brother was tired of me. I knew that.

Since the black bear ruined my legs three years ago, my moods had grown worse with each passing season. I hated that I could not manage my own body without a den-servant's help. I hated watching other females circle close to Dravik. I hated that swinging a whip at my own cub required every last ounce of strength left in me.

So I had become a creature of rage — because I needed their eyes on me. I needed to exist in their world.

But I had forgotten: no one can hold an endless tide of cruelty. Not even blood.

My blood-brother couldn't do it. How much less, then, could Dravik and Sorren?

I looked at the cub before me — eight years old, back held ramrod-straight, the marks from my whip vivid against his tender skin, face utterly empty.

I pushed my roll-seat forward. I wanted to help him up.

I hadn't even touched him when Sorren knee-walked backward, cold and efficient, opening a gulf between us. His palms pressed flat against the stone floor, knuckles going pale.

Then he rose, turned, and walked away without meeting my gaze.

"It seems Dam has no further business. I'll attend to my lessons."

As he passed through the doorway, I caught a flash of rose-pink cloth at the corner.

The golden light came again.

"Why do you still linger here? She is waiting for him outside — she who saved what you could not protect."

"On the road back from the borderlands, he chose to stay at her side. He held her through the cold of the night."

"She has earned what she is given. Remember that."

My heart clenched as though a fist had closed around it.

The female in rose-pink at the doorway — that was the one Dravik had brought back from the borderlands. Her name was Thalwen. She had traveled with the hunt-pack as a bone-mender, and by the accounts that reached me, she had pulled Dravik back from the edge of death three separate times.

The third time, he had carried her out through a field of bodies with his own arms. After that, it was said, he had eyes for no one else.

I drew a long breath.

These years, I had been reckless. I had been cruel. I had lost my own blood-brother's patience. I had lost the use of my own legs. And I had nothing left but the charity of others to keep me alive.

The Mother Goddess had shown me my ending: cast out of Warlord's House, left to rot in the burial grounds.

Even with grief eating through my chest, I tilted my chin up and spoke to Dravik.

"She's been waiting outside for a long time. Go to her."

Dravik paused.

He looked at me for a long, strange moment — and said nothing at all. He simply stood, turned, and left.

The door closed.

From the other side, I heard Thalwen's soft voice: "Warlord, are you unharmed?"

And Dravik's low reply: "I'm fine."

I looked down at my useless legs, at the roll-seat that had become my prison, and I laughed — a quiet, helpless sound.

Tears landed on my hands without warning.