Chapter 2

Mara’s POV

The severance chamber smelled like my fertility medicine.

Captain Orsik locked the iron door and refused to meet my eyes. The chamber was older than the packhouse above it, built from black stone and silver-veined mortar. A narrow cot sat against one wall. At the center of the room stood a waist-high ritual table fitted with leather straps.

I had attended two voluntary bond severings as Luna. Neither had involved straps.

“Orsik.”

He stopped outside the bars.

“Look at me.”

He did. His face looked ten years older than it had that morning.

“Is Gideon planning to use the old severance blade?”

“I don’t know.”

“You are a terrible liar.”

He exhaled through his nose. “Mara, please. Don't make me choose between you and my Alpha.”

“He already made you choose. That is why I am behind a locked door.”

He looked tense. I stepped closer to the bars. “What happens at midnight?”

“The Concord priest is coming.”

“And?”

“They said the bond has become unstable.”

“That sounds very official.”

“Mara.”

“Will they cut my mate’s mark?”

Silence answered me. A severance blade didn't simply break a bond. Used incorrectly, it could damage the wolf beneath it. That was why the Concord had banned forced severings three generations ago. Apparently, rules became flexible when an Alpha needed a pregnant mistress recognized quickly.

“Orsik, open the door.”

He looked genuinely pained. “I can’t.”

“You can. You won’t. There is a difference.”

His hand tightened around the key ring. Footsteps sounded behind him. Orsik straightened immediately.

Vivian appeared at the end of the corridor carrying a ceramic cup. She had changed out of the silver ceremonial dress and into a dark wool gown. My necklace still rested at her throat.

I gripped the bars. “You have remarkable timing.”

“Leave us,” she told Orsik.

He hesitated.

Vivian’s smile sharpened. “Do I need to remind you who Luna will be by morning?”

He looked at me once, then walked toward the stairs.

“Coward,” I said.

“He’s practical,” Vivian replied. “You used to appreciate that quality.”

She stopped in front of the cell and held out the cup. The bitter herbal scent reached me immediately, unmistakably moonroot. I knew it because I had spent six years swallowing it. My stomach turned.

“Drink.”

“No.”

“It will keep the severing from hurting as much.”

I laughed. “That is nearly kind.”

“You always mistake softness for kindness.”

“And I mistook you for a friend. We are both having educational evenings.”

Her mouth tightened. I pointed at the cup.

“Was that in my fertility medicine?”

Vivian didn't answer.

“Say it.”

“You are in no position to order me.”

“Then consider it professional curiosity. You were my healer for six years. What did you make me drink?”

She looked down at the dark liquid.

“Moonroot. Silverbind. A few stabilizers.”

My fingers went numb against the bars. Silverbind wasn't a fertility drug. They used it on violent wolves after uncontrolled shifts because it dulled the connection between human and wolf.

“You suppressed my wolf.”

“We kept you stable.”

I stared at the cup. For six years I had carried the empty ones back to the kitchen myself. I had thanked her for coming when the fevers woke me, apologized when I couldn't keep the medicine down.

“Who is ‘we’?”

Vivian glanced toward the stairs. “Your father understood what you needed. Gideon found his notes.”

“My father has been dead for eight years.”

“And you were fourteen when he first had to stop your wolf from surfacing. Ask yourself why.”

That's why, even the first time I tasted it, its flavor seemed familiar to me.

“What did it do to the fertility treatments?”

“This is not the time.”

“It was the time every month you watched me wait for a child.”

She pushed the cup farther through the slot. I picked it up, and relief crossed her face. For a moment I held it between us. Then I smashed it against the wall.

Vivian flinched. Dark liquid ran through the mortar beside my shoulder.

“I will never drink anything you give me again.”

“Then don’t expect me to help when the severing goes wrong.”

She looked at the broken chain around my wrist. I had seen her touch my necklace the same way upstairs, as though checking that something she wanted had not slipped away.

“You could have had any man in Ironwood.”

“I wanted the one who mattered.”

“Then congratulations. You got him.”

Her eyes returned to my broken mate chain.

“Not while that bond still exists.”

She stepped closer to the bars again.

“Midnight ends it. After that, my child will take their rightful place, while you revert to a powerless outcast with no foot left to stand on in Ironwood. Cooperate now, and Gideon might prove merciful enough to let you grow old somewhere far to the south.”

“How generous.”

“If you don't, the priest will help.”

I looked past her toward the stairs.

“How many guards?”

“Enough.”

I nodded, making myself remember the answer. I could grieve the years I had lost if I survived the night.

Vivian turned away. “At least drink water. The drugs are leaving your system faster than expected.”

“Is that why Gideon’s command failed?”

She stopped at the foot of the stairs.

“Yes.”

My pulse quickened at the implication.

“And what happens when they are completely gone?”

Vivian looked back over her shoulder.

“That is what everyone is afraid to find out.”

When she left, I sat on the cot for three minutes. The oath chambers had been rebuilt after the flood six winters ago. I knew that because I had supervised the repairs while Gideon negotiated with southern packs.

The masons had complained about an old service conduit behind the western wall. I remembered approving a false stone panel so workers could access the drainage channel without tearing up the floor. Lunas were apparently useful until somebody needed them helpless.

I stood, dragged the cot across the room, and examined the mortar.

The panel was still there.

It took me twenty minutes to loosen it with the metal edge of the washbasin. By the time it shifted, my palms were bleeding. Voices sounded on the stairs.

“The priest is early,” someone said.

I shoved the panel inward. A narrow black gap opened behind it. The cell door rattled.

“Mara?”

Orsik. I squeezed into the passage.

“Mara!”

The iron door opened behind me.

“She’s gone!”

I crawled through dust and frozen mud while boots thundered into the chamber. The passage narrowed until stone scraped both shoulders. I kept moving. Behind me, someone found the opening and shouted.

“East conduit! Cut her off outside!”

I moved faster.

The tunnel ended above an old drainage channel beyond the inner wall. I dropped six feet into the snow and landed badly on one knee. Pain flashed up my leg. I got up anyway. The eastern gate was already closing.

I ran north.

A command cracked through the pack link.

MARA, STOP.

Gideon’s voice hit every wolf in Ironwood. I felt the force of it. I felt the expectation inside my bones, the place where obedience should have lived.

Nothing happened.

I kept running. His shock came through the link before he cut it.

“Find her!” someone shouted behind me.

Wolves shifted in the courtyard. I reached the frozen river as paws pounded through the trees. The bridge was too far west. The ice below me was thin and black, moving over deep water.

I had two choices: go back to the men carrying a severance blade, or trust a river that had killed three hunters last winter.

“This is a terrible decision,” I told myself.

Then I jumped.

The ice broke under my second step, and the cold swallowed me whole. For one second, I couldn't tell which way was up. My dress dragged around my legs while the current pulled me beneath the ice.

A voice that was not mine growled inside my head.

Swim.

My eyes flew open underwater.

The voice came again, furious and female.

SWIM, MARA.

I kicked toward the pale blur above me. My hand broke through ice, then my shoulder. I dragged myself onto the bank and lay there coughing until voices carried from the other side of the river.

“She crossed!”

“Alpha said north. Move!”

I forced myself up.

The trees changed after another hour. Ironwood pine gave way to steep black fir, and the air smelled colder, cleaner. A stone marker rose beside the trail.

BLACK HOLLOW TERRITORY.

Black Hollow didn't answer to Gideon. Its Warden enforced northern treaty law and had publicly threatened three Alphas in the last year. He might arrest me, or return me. At least Gideon would have to ask first.

I crossed the marker.

A metal cable snapped around my ankle, and I hit the ground.

The ward trap tightened, dragging my leg out from under me. I rolled onto my back as a huge black wolf stepped between the trees. His eyes were silver.

The moment he caught my scent, his head snapped toward me. A low growl rolled through his chest, but instead of lunging, he moved over me, planting himself between my body and the dark forest as if anything coming through those trees would have to go through him first.

A man emerged behind him carrying a crossbow.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair and no royal jewelry or ceremonial coat, only black winter leather and the expression of a man who had been interrupted during something important.

“Do not move,” he said.

“Wasn’t planning to. Your trap has opinions.”

His gaze dropped to my bleeding feet and torn dress, then to the broken mate chain around my wrist.

“Mara Voss-Thorne?”

My stomach tightened. “Who is asking?”

“Ronan Vale. Warden of Black Hollow.”

Of course he was.

He lowered the crossbow slightly.

“Ironwood sent a warrant twenty minutes ago.”

I swallowed. “For what?”

His silver eyes met mine.

“Attempted murder of a pregnant Luna.”