The torches in the chamber burned low, their guttering flames casting a frantic, dying light. Shadows, like grasping fingers, flickered and danced across the cold, rune-etched stone walls as Kaelen stormed inside. The heavy iron door slammed shut behind him with a finality that echoed through Selara's bones. His silver eyes, usually so cold and controlled, were molten mercury, and they locked onto her with an intensity that felt like a physical blow, searing through the oppressive dark of the dungeon.
"Answer me," he demanded, his voice a whip-crack of authority that brooked no disobedience. It was the voice of the Alpha, the voice that commanded hundreds. "What did you tell Mira?"
Selara rose slowly from the cold, straw-littered floor, her muscles protesting from hours of tense stillness. The worn hilt of her dagger was a familiar, comforting weight in her clenched fist, a tiny anchor in the storm of his presence. "Nothing," she said, her own voice quieter but no less steady. "She came to me. She threatened me. If anyone should be questioned, Kaelen, it is your sister."
Kaelen's jaw flexed, a tiny muscle ticking near his temple. Fury darkened his expression, making him look more like the ruthless predator his pack believed him to be and less like the man whose soul was inexplicably, infuriatingly tethered to hers. He crossed the small cell in two long strides, closing the distance between them until the heat radiating from his body pressed against the chill that had seeped into her very core. "Mira would not dare defy me. Not on this."
A bitter, hollow laugh escaped Selara's lips. "Then you don't know her as well as you think you do. She dares plenty. She believes your bond to me is a weakness, a crack in the foundation of your strength. She came here to warn me that the pack would soon see it the same way."
His hand shot out, a blur of motion too fast for her to evade. His fingers, strong as iron bands, closed around her wrist, forcing the dagger from her palm. It clattered against the stone floor, the sound obscenely loud in the tense silence. Selara gasped, not from the pain of his grip, but from the violent, electric pulse of the bond that flared to life at the contact. His skin against hers was a brand, sending a torrent of heat flooding through her veins unwanted, dangerous, and utterly intoxicating.
Kaelen felt it too. She saw it in the sudden, startled flash of his silver eyes, in the barely perceptible hitch of his breath. For a single, suspended moment, the Alpha's mask slipped, and she saw the man beneath just as conflicted, just as tormented by this cursed connection. But instead of loosening his grip, his fingers tightened, as if he could physically chain the bond, master it through force of will alone.
"You think you understand this pack? The politics, the ancient hatreds?" His voice was a low, vicious snarl, meant for her ears only. "You don't. You see a den of wolves, but you are blind to the shifting alliances, the old blood feuds that run deeper than this mountain. The only reason they haven't torn you apart already is because they fear me. But Mira isn't wrong. They whisper in the shadows. They question my judgment. They wait, with bared teeth, for me to slip. For a single sign of weakness."
Selara glared back, her violet eyes burning with a defiance she didn't entirely feel. "Then maybe you already have. By keeping me alive. By keeping me here."
His growl was a low, primal sound that seemed to vibrate through the very chamber walls, rattling the torch sconces. His control, stretched taut for weeks, snapped like brittle bone. For a terrifying heartbeat, Selara thought he might kill her then and there, sever the problem at its source and be done with it. Instead, he spun on his heel, a vortex of contained rage, and wrenched the iron door open.
"Come."
The command was absolute. Two large wolves warriors from Kaelen's personal guard stood waiting outside, their eyes cold and impassive, their shoulders stiff with grim anticipation. They moved with efficient brutality, seizing Selara by her arms, their grips vise-like. She instinctively struggled, a fruitless effort against their combined strength.
"Do not fight them." Kaelen's voice cut through the corridor, cold and sharp as winter ice. It was not a request. It was an order from her Alpha, and the bond within her twisted, compelling obedience even as her spirit rebelled.
Her heart thundered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat of dread as the guards half-dragged, half-marched her down the winding torch-lit corridors. The air grew colder, carrying the scent of packed snow and pine from the outside. She knew these passages. They led to the main courtyard. Realization dawned, cold and sharp as a blade. She knew where he was taking her, and why.
The great courtyard of the Frostfang Fortress was a bowl of blazing torchlight and shifting, hungry shadows. The entire pack had gathered, a sea of grim, expectant faces. Hundreds of eyes, gleaming like chips of amber and jet in the dark, turned toward her as she was hauled into the center. The snow crunched loudly under her thin boots, the sound isolating her in the sudden silence. A low, continuous growl rippled through the crowd, a sound of promised violence that made the hair on her arms stand on end.
Rynar Volk stepped forward from the throng. As Beta, his authority was second only to Kaelen's, and his stare was as sharp and merciless as a honed blade. He did not look at Selara. His eyes were fixed on his Alpha, though his words were meant for all.
"Alpha." His voice, deep and carrying, rang out across the hushed courtyard. "The pack has spoken. They demand proof. Proof that your judgment is your own. Proof that you have not been bewitched by the Moonveil blood that runs in her veins."
A murmur of agreement spread through the ranks like wildfire. Wolves snarled their assent. Some, bolder, spat on the ground at Selara's feet, the gesture thick with contempt for her lineage, for the clan they had fought and bled against for generations.
Kaelen stood tall and unyielding before them, a statue carved from winter itself. His silver eyes swept across his wolves, and for a moment, the sheer force of his presence seemed to quell the rising tide of anger. "She is under my protection," he declared, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the fortress. "My word is law. That should be proof enough."
But Rynar did not yield. His jaw tightened, a display of defiance that was carefully calculated. "Your word has always been law, Alpha. But a law that feels unjust is a law that breeds rebellion in the dark. We follow you because you are strong. We trust you because you put the pack first. Always. This... situation tests that trust. Let her prove her worth. Let her prove she is more than a weakness, more than a witch's snare. Let her face the Trial by Blood."
Selara froze, her breath catching in her throat, crystallizing in the frigid air. The Trial by Blood. She had heard the stories, whispered in terrified tones around dying campfires. A trial older than the fortress itself, a relic from a time when strength was the only law. A wolf accused, challenged, or an outsider seeking entry was cast into the fighting ring against another. Sometimes a rival. Sometimes a condemned criminal. Often, a starved, enraged beast from the deepest mountain woods. They fought with tooth and claw and raw strength. No magic. No weapons. Only primal, savage force. They fought until one yielded or died. No one ever yielded.
Her stomach dropped, a lead weight of pure terror. She was not a warrior. She was a healer. Her hands were made for mending flesh, not rending it. Her skills lay in herbs and healing energies, not in the brutal dance of combat. The wolf within her, a creature of grace and instinct, whined in fear.
"No," Kaelen said sharply, his voice slicing through the night. For the first time, Selara heard a thread of something beyond anger alarm. "The trial is for wolves of the pack, not for"
"The pack demands it!" Rynar cut in, his voice rising to a roar that was taken up by the wolves behind him. His eyes glinted with something unreadable fervent loyalty or shrewd challenge, Selara couldn't tell. "This is the only way! If she survives, she has proven her strength. The pack will see it. The whispers will end, and they will follow you without question. If she dies..." He shrugged, a cold, brutal gesture. "Then the problem is solved, and the pack's faith in you is restored. The whispers end either way."
The courtyard erupted. The growls became snarls, became howls of bloodthirsty agreement. Wolves stamped the ground, their collective energy a palpable, violent force that shook the very air. It was no longer a request. It was a tide, and Kaelen stood on the shore, poised to be swept away by it.
Selara's pulse pounded in her ears, a frantic rhythm of doom. She watched Kaelen, saw the rigid line of his back, the almost imperceptible tremor in his clenched fists. He was balanced on a knife's edge. To refuse was to show the weakness they all suspected, to spark the immediate rebellion Mira had promised. To agree was to sign her death warrant.
His shoulders tightened. He turned slowly to face her, and his silver gaze was hard, impenetrable. The Alpha's mask was back, flawless and cold. But she was bound to him. She felt the turmoil beneath the ice, the raging conflict between the man who was inexplicably tied to her and the Alpha who had to lead his pack.
"You will fight."
The words were stones dropped into the pit of her stomach. "You can't mean that," she breathed, the words barely a whisper, meant for him alone. "Kaelen, I am a healer. You know I cannot win this."
"You will fight," he repeated, his voice like granite, leaving no room for appeal. But beneath the unyielding hardness, she heard it the faintest crack. The raw, desperate fear. Not for his position. Not for his pack. For her.
The bond between them flared again, a white-hot wire of shared terror and helpless anger. Selara's breath shook in her lungs. Her wolf cowered, submissive and terrified. She wanted to scream, to curse him, to curse the Moon Goddess for this cruel, twisted joke of a fate. To bind her soul to a man whose world demanded her death.
Rynar stepped forward again, a victor claiming his prize. "At dawn," he announced, his lips curling into a thin, cruel smile that was all teeth. "When the first light touches the highest peak. The Moonveil witch will face her trial."
The pack howled, a cacophonous, savage sound that rattled the fortress walls and shot into the star-strewn sky, a promise of the blood to be spilled. Selara stood trembling in the center of the circle, the wolves' eyes burning into her, their hatred and anticipation a physical pressure. She had walked into the wolf's den of her own volition, driven by a fate she could not escape, and now, the dawn would come to decide if she would ever walk out alive.
The guards jerked her around to march her back to her cell. As they did, Kaelen turned, his dark cloak swirling around him like a storm cloud. He moved close, so quickly it was a blur, and his voice was a low, guttural growl meant for her ears alone, a secret buried beneath the howls of his pack.
"Survive, Selara." The words were ripped from him, fraught with a agony that belied their command. "Whatever it takes. Use everything you are. Everything you have. Survive. Or you'll leave me no choice but to burn this entire pack to the ground for you, and I fear that is a darkness neither of us would survive."
Then he was gone, striding away through the crowd, which parted for him like a sea before a sharp prow. Selara was left with the echo of his terrible promise and the chilling certainty that dawn was coming far too quickly.