Chapter 2

They put me in an iron-barred cage and roll me toward Ghostfang Ridge.

Seven days. Seven days of every rut in the road splitting my legs open again.

The bandages soak through by the second day.

By the fourth, the cloth has fused to the wound and I can smell my own blood going wrong in the heat.

The warrior driving the cage is one of Sable's. Young. Loyal. He keeps his head down the whole ride.

When my lips crack from thirst, he passes a waterskin through the bars without looking at me.

"Forgive me, Commander."

He says it every time.

I drink. I don't answer. I have no hate left for him. I'm saving all of it.

On the seventh night, the cage stops.

I smell the border before I see it.

Pine. Cold stone. Old blood in the dirt where Ashfall and Bonecrag have been killing each other for a hundred years.

Ghostfang Ridge.

Two Bonecrag warriors haul me out by the arms. My legs drag behind me like meat on a hook. They drop me in the dirt between the two pack lines.

I lift my head.

And there he is. The reason.

Elara Wren.

She is wrapped in a thick fur cloak that I have seen before — Caelan's cloak, the one our mother wove for him the year he became Enforcer.

Marek is already pressing a steaming waterskin into her hands.

Sable is brushing snow off her hair like she's made of glass.

She is unharmed. Not a bruise. Not a scratch. Not a single hair out of place.

Beyond her stands Alpha Yvarn — in full battle leathers, his new Beta at his shoulder like a shadow.

He looks down at me the way a man looks at a wolf he's been hunting for years and has finally cornered. His smile is a slow, hungry thing.

"So," he says. "The Iron Wolf. Crawling in my dirt."

His warriors laugh.

My brothers don't say a word.

Caelan steps forward and bows his head — bows it — to the Alpha who slaughtered our patrols for three winters.

"Alpha Yvarn. We've brought her. May we take Elara home?"

His voice is careful. Almost begging.

I have never heard my brother beg.

Yvarn laughs out loud. He points his riding crop at me.

"This?" he drawls. "This is the Iron Wolf of Ashfall? She can't even crawl."

His men howl.

My brothers' faces go red with shame — and still, still, none of them speak. They just close ranks tighter around Elara, like she's the one who needs protecting from the humiliation.

And then Elara peeks out from behind Caelan's shoulder.

She looks down at my legs. At the bandages. At the blood frozen black on my trousers.

There is no guilt in her face.

There is something else.

Her lips curve. Just slightly. Just for me. A small, perfect, secret smile.

A winner's smile.

I have known Elara since she was a pup. I carried her on my back through the first snow she ever saw.

I let her cry into my fur the night her parents died.

I gave my brothers permission to court her, all three of them, when the bond first sparked between them.

And this is what she gives me back.

A smile.

I press my forehead into the cold dirt and I laugh. Quiet. Bloody. Real.

I am going to live until I take it off her face myself.