Sadie

“Father.”

I carefully held up my hands in placation and wandered into the restaurant. The tables were all vacant apart from the corner booth. The squat, bald-headed bartender stood frozen behind the bar, his cheeks tinted scarlet, seemingly paralyzed by fear.

“.”

My father said my name like he’d caught me sneaking sweets at a full moon service. He tipped his chin toward the booth, a silent command to sit.

My father scrubbed his fingers down his weathered face that had always bent toward a frown. His broad, stocky build was crammed into the center of the bench by the two Wolves who sat on either side of him—his brothers, Aubron and Pilus—all three of them close friends to King Nero.

“Lord Rauxtide,”

Maez said awkwardly beside me as the two of us walked tentatively forward. “Pilus.” She nodded to the lanky older man. “Aubron, looking handsome as ever,” she added with a wink.

Aubron had a long black beard that was braided to a point and a completely bald head. A wide scar snaked down his eye socket from where King Nero had cut it out. I remembered that day like it was yesterday. I saw it behind my eyelids still. I was seven years old, and Aubron had been pulled up onto the dais by the King’s guard and accused of spying. Accused by who we never knew. Accused of what we never knew, either. Now, I understood that King Nero didn’t need to have a true reason to show his dominance. No one would ever question him . . . except Calla. Calla was the very first Wolf to dare to go against Nero. But then, we thought, This must be justice. He must deserve this.

Now I had my doubts.

Maez dropped onto the bench across from my father and uncles and I slid in beside her. Navin stared straight ahead as if he were afraid to even shift his gaze lest he be stabbed by my father’s blade. I wondered if he was reliving the last attack when Ora was kidnapped. He seemed still enough to know that a knife to his throat from this trio was no idle threat.

“So,”

Maez asked, propping her elbows on the table as if we were all just catching up for a pack dinner. “What brings you to Valta?”

I went to elbow Maez and she pulled away from me. She always did this, always dug our graves a little deeper when we were already in precarious situations. What I really wanted to know was why they took Ora in the first place and if now they intended to take Navin, too.

“What do you think I’m doing in Valta?”

my father rasped in his scratchy, lethal voice. “I’ve come to fetch my wayward daughter and get her out of our current predicament.”

“Predicament?”

I balked, hating the flash of relief that he wasn’t here for Navin.

My father’s dark eyes found mine, a curl on his scarred lip. “You are a skin chaser and a traitor, . You and your brother have brought so much shame to our family’s name,”

he said. I tried not to flinch, clenching my fists so tight below the table that my nails were drawing blood. “We were nearly cut out of the pack entirely.”

My eyes flared at that. I hadn’t expected King Nero to retaliate against my family for Hector’s and my betrayal. My father and uncles were some of Nero’s closest advisers . . . but then I looked at Aubron’s scar again and realized I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Father,”

I said tightly, stealing a glance at Navin who still held perfectly still. He didn’t look frightened so much as frozen, like he was in such a deep state of meditation that he was no longer aware of where he was. “Will you put your knife down at least? The human knows better than to run from a pack of Wolves.”

I’d hoped insinuating that my father and I were still part of the same pack might win me some favors, and judging by my father’s arched curious brow at the words “the human,”

I’d say I was succeeding. Navin finally reacted then, cutting a glance across the room to the barman. It was such a subtle move, barely a nod. Still, it was jarring to see the completely vacant look in his eyes. I wondered if he was trying to tell his fellow human to run. I wondered, too, if he was using the same sort of magic that Ora used to evade spilling secrets.

That he seemed to use back in that snowy mountain village.

Should I even be defending him? Who was I even protecting?

I resisted the urge to snarl like a Wolf guarding its kill. Deceptions or no, Navin was mine to deal with as I willed. And for all my distrust, I didn’t want him to die at my father’s hands.

“So you mean to bring us back?”

I asked my father, my shoulders easing as he lowered his knife from Navin’s throat.

“Just you,”

Pilus said, spitting on the table. “Maez can rot in the Valtan sun with your Wolf-loving boyfriend for all we care. If she steps one foot in Damrienn she’ll be skinned alive, her furs worn as a nice winter stole.”

“You paint such a lovely picture, Pilly,”

Maez said, her hand drifting to her weapons belt. “But I think I’ll opt for rotting in the Valtan sun.” Maez shrugged. “You know I’ve always liked this tune.”

It was only then I realized that the barman had taken out a lastar and started plucking its strings. He looked petrified and yet he still strummed. Was that what Navin was instructing him to do? Play a song?

What the actual fuck?

“I can’t go back to Damrienn,”

I said tightly.

My father’s smile widened. “That’s good, because you won’t be going back to Damrienn.”

My brows knitted in confusion. “Then where?”

“Rikesh.”

“Rikesh?”

“Congratulations, ,”

my father said, slapping the table. “I’ve arranged for your hand in marriage to Prince Tadei of Rikesh.”

Bile rose up my throat as all the blood drained from my face. “What?”

Two patrons tried to walk into the restaurant and the barman shouted, “We’re closed.”

The humans quickly scattered out the door. And still the barman kept playing his tune, the tempo increasing now to the pace of a jig.

My father leaned into the table, smiling wickedly at me. “You will be Luo’s little brother’s bride. You’ll be a princess. More, you’ll be an ally to Damrienn.”

So this was their bargaining chip to bring Luo to their side of the war? A Silver Wolf princess?

Me?

My face flushed further and I couldn’t blame the heat. “No.”

“No isn’t an option for you anymore, little one,”

Aubron said.

“What would your betrothed think?”

Pilus taunted. “You’d deny a prince?”

“Tadei has been shirked by plenty of bitches already,”

Maez said with a chuckle. “I’m sure he’d understand one more. I swear he must have a haunted fella to have so many brides reject him.”

My uncles snarled in unison at her. I had no idea why so many marriages to the Onyx King and his little brother fell through, when, like me, none of those brides really had a choice. But they had, and I wasn’t about to test seeing if I could become another one. Gods forbid he actually try to hold on to me. Maybe one more rejection would make him finally snap.

“You will marry him and bring the Onyx Wolves back into play for the coming war,”

my father insisted, confirming my suspicions. They knew a war was brewing, too. But that also meant the Onyx Wolves weren’t already on their side.

“Oh, so I’m a trade for his armies?”

I asked, noting how Navin stiffened from my periphery.

“Something like that,”

Pilus said.

“And here I thought you’d come because you cared for me.”

“We care for you inasmuch as it keeps you—and our family—alive,”

Pilus said.

I was about to respond when Maez interjected, “Funny how Tadei gets older and older, but the age of his brides stays the same. How old is the prince now? Surely into his fifth decade at least, hmm?”

“Silence,”

Aubron spat. He pointed a gnarled finger at Maez. “We are taking to Rikesh and delivering her to her prince whether you like it or not.”

“And then we’re returning with an army that will destroy your little Gold Wolf friends,”

Pilus added.

“You are putting a lot of value in ’s honeypot, I must say,”

Maez said. I gaped at her. “What?” She turned back to my uncles. “They know how sex works. I’m sure they’ve even had it a time or two.” More growls from my uncles. “The real thing I want to know from you”—she pointed her finger back in Aubron’s face in mirror to his action, ignoring their bristling at her insult—“is how did you know we were here?”

Aubron’s snarl turned into a smile as he leaned into the table. “We aren’t the only ones seeking your bounty.”

My vision sharpened, my Wolf desperate to break free as panic coursed through me. “Bounty?”

“King Luo has put quite a lot of gritas on anyone who finds his brother’s bride and brings her safely home,”

Pilus said.

“What?”

The word barely came out as a rasp.

“He’s not the only one who put a bounty out.”

Aubron laughed maniacally and slapped Maez’s hand away. “Nero has announced the marriage of his new heir, Evres, to a certain Crimson Princess.”

That . . . was a mistake. Threaten me, and Maez would come to my defense. Threaten Briar . . .

Fast as a snow snake, Maez’s dagger embedded into the wood of the table. My uncles pulled their knives and held them out at her in response. “She already has a mate,”

Maez seethed. “No one can break that Wolf law.”

“You’re no longer a Wolf,”

Pilus purred. “You’re a traitor. We don’t recognize shit from you.”

“Briar will make an excellent match to Evres,”

my father said with a dark chuckle. “A Damrienn Queen just like she was raised to be.”

Maez yanked her blade from the wood and was about to lunge when a loud crash sounded from behind the bar. A glass seemed to fall from the bar of its own volition and shattered across the tiled floor. As all the heads turned to the sound, Maez rose suddenly, flipping the table into my uncles. Navin darted from the booth just in time to avoid the wood smacking into him. Before my father and uncles could rise, Maez nailed my father’s foot to the bench with another knife. He let out a baying howl, shifting instantly into a snarling Silver Wolf.

“Run!”