Chapter 2

Rinan

The witch territory smells of death and blood. Or maybe that's just the passage. My gaze roams over the one corridor between the Shifter Kingdom and the Witch Kingdom, the one break between the mountains that surround witch territory. I note the blood-stained sand. Bent, broken, and shattered weapons litter the ground and protrude from the mountain walls. It's a fucking nightmare.

Hell, there are even blood stains on the mountain walls.

I can't imagine how the witches killed some of us for our blood to be that high, and I don't want to know. Still, my nerves hum beneath my skin as our party of shifters continue to follow the witches. Some tiny voice inside of me is screaming that this treaty could be a trap, and that my friends and I might have to be ready to battle at any moment.

"I fucking hate these bitches," Drogo growls on his horse beside me. The brunette's normally handsome face is twisted with anger, and his lip is curled.

I force a smile. Being cautious and unhappy won't do any good. "Yet, those bitches are the ones who helped to make the peace treaty happen."

Arlys, on my other side, sighs deeply. "Peace between our people should be cause for a great celebration…"

"And yet?" I prod, noticing his troubled expression.

"And yet, after all this time of war, this feels… too easy. Doesn't it?" His long, black hair ruffles in the breeze, and he reminds me of his father in his healthier days. Something about Arlys is just always so noble, like it's part of his very soul.

That's probably how alphas should be. There's something wrong with Drogo and I. He's too angry. I'm too careless. Arlys is a leader through-and-through.

"We shouldn't have agreed to this," Drogo says, the tattoos on his huge arms rippling as he moves on his horse. "Our fathers were wrong. This will only end in more bloodshed and more death."

"Except we didn't have a choice," I say with a shrug.

The three of us are sons to powerful kings, powerful alphas of their packs. We live to obey until it's our time to rule. There's no questioning our fathers. Especially not when so much hangs on the balance of this peace treaty.

And our peace bride.

Thunder rumbles overhead, and I stare up at the cloudy sky. A storm is coming. That must be a bad omen. The clouds have darkened, blocking out the sun until it's nearly as dark as night.

"Hey, at least we might get to travel through the rain," I say chipperly.

Drogo casts me a glare. "I'm going to fucking punch you."

I decide to try my luck. "And there should be a good number of women where we're going…"

Drogo gets an eye tic. "I'd sooner dip my cock in the mouth of an oozing whore."

"And the witches are so tiny. Imagine what that would feel like?"

Arlys speaks without looking at me. "If you so much as glance too long at a witch, we're cutting it off."

I grip my cock with my free hand. "Don't say such things in front of the big fella! He might be large and strong, but he has feelings too!"

"He's not that large," Drogo says with a snort.

I puff my chest out. "Want to compare, Mr. Girth and No Length?"

Drogo's big blue eyes widen. "I have length!"

Arlys is grinning now, instead of looking like he was sitting on a broom handle, which is exactly what I wanted. Worrying is as useless as trying to fly. We need to save our energy for when we really need it.

"Remember when we all compared them?" I tell Arlys. "You tell me who won the length contest?"

"We didn't properly measure!" Drogo says, then further argues in an angry little voice, "I wasn't gripping it right."

"Are you asking for a remeasure?" I challenge.

They both groan, but Arlys answers. "We are not pulling our dicks out in front of the witches no matter how much it hurts your pride."

I shrug. "I'm fine. I won the length contest."

Drogo shoots me another glare. "And who won the girth one?"

Arlys clears his throat. "If we're talking about finest specimens, mine was the winner there."

"You made that prize up!" I accuse.

Suddenly, every hair on my body stands on end, and my breathing slows as my senses stretch out. We pull our horses to a halt, all of us aware that something is wrong, and look behind us, expecting a trick from the witches. To our shock, we see monsters racing toward us through the passage. Three sickly-green ogrish things with sharp teeth and sharp claws.

We're off our horses in an instant, shifting into our wolf forms. We race past our men as they stop their horses, realizing that something's wrong. I leap right onto the chest of one of the ogres and bite down into his shoulder as hard as I can, even though I'd been aiming for the throat. The creature screams, and blood fills my mouth.

I see Arlys get thrown, but he leaps off the ground and right back onto the beast. I'm trying to adjust, to reach his throat, when he makes a terrible wailing sound and seems to shrink beneath me. Something's wrong. Jumping off, a whine slips from my throat as he continues to wail and… melt.

Fuck. That's what's happening. He's melting. The other ogres are too.

I turn to see Queen Keeva Stone and two of her fellow witches with their hands outstretched. Their magic is melting the ogres into puddles before us. I can feel the ogres' pain in their screams, but the sound becomes more gurgled until they're nothing more than puddles of flesh, organs, and bones.

There are stories, far too many stories, of the ways the witches have killed our kind for more than a century. Being melted to death was among those stories, but our soldiers rarely talked about it. Now, I know why.

I shift back into my human self and rise from the ground, my two best friends beside me.

Queen Keeva Stone couldn't be more than five feet tall, with a petite frame and jet-black hair. If she weren't a witch, maybe one of our kind might find her exotic look attractive, but there's nothing attractive about this woman. From the first time I met her, I sensed nothing but a dark soul, someone capable of cruelty, someone who enjoys what they do.

She smiles at me, and it sends a chill right down my spine. "It's all taken care of, boys."

Maybe she wants us to thank them, but we don't. I would've rather killed the ogres in a fair battle. It might have ended in some injuries for me, but it'd be something I was proud of. Unlike that.

She and the women head back to their horses. We follow slowly after. Our men are silent, probably thinking of all the loved ones they lost to the battles with the witches and just how painfully those loved ones died.

Back on my horse, I look at my best friends. "And we're going to be married to one of them," I whisper softly.

The anger in Drogo's face is impossible to ignore. "Not for long."