Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
ADDIE
Ihad forgotten this.
I had spent a decade pretending my legs were meant for trousers and high heels. But out here, under the silver bleed of the moon, I was nothing but muscle, breath, and speed. I was a streak of copper fire in the dark.
Beside me, the black shadow that was Vidar moved with liquid grace. He was larger than me; his scent a heavy anchor of cedar and forest. He didn't crowd me. He matched my stride, our breaths forming a jagged, rhythmic symphony in the cold air.
For years, I had run as a ghost. A lone wolf haunting the edges of a world that didn't want me.
But as we broke into a wide meadow, the air changed.
Three more shadows merged from the tree line; the massive, steady weight of Magnus, the restless, loping presence of Gunnar, and the frenetic energy of Ivar.
It was no longer just a run; it was a pack.
The exhilarating pull of it was a drug. The collective heat of them. The silent communication of ears twitching and tails wagging. My animal brain sang with the overwhelming security of the line. I wasn't just running through the woods; I was the woods.
Ivar ran alongside me, his wolf playful. I'd run a few times with my brother when he was this age. I'd missed so much of Elias growing up as a man and as a wolf.
The exhilaration of the run stuttered when a shadow larger and denser than Vidar’s pulled up alongside my flank. Magnus.
In the moonlight, his grey fur looked like hammered lead, his paws striking the earth with a heavy thud that vibrated in my chest. Instinctively, I cowered.
My ears flattened against my skull, my tail tucked tight, a reflexive surrender born from years of surviving Adolphus Vane.
I expected the snap at my ankles, the sharp nip to my hock to force me into a different stride, or the rake of a claw against my ribs to remind me I was out of place.
That was the only Alpha language I knew; the language of scars and smallness.
The bite never came.
Magnus didn't growl to assert dominance.
He didn't use the jagged edges of his presence to cut me down.
He was simply there, a mountain of quiet authority that didn't need to bark to be felt.
Still, even without the violence, the weight of him was suffocating.
It was hard to breathe, hard to relax when every nerve in my body was screaming that a king was walking beside me.
He seemed to sense the frantic rhythm of my heart, the way I flinched away from his massive shoulder. He didn't push. Instead, he let out a short, huffing breath. It was a sound that was almost dismissive of my fear. Magnus surged forward.
He took point at the very front of the line.
His head high. His ears swiveling. A sentinel scouring the dark for anything that might dare threaten the pack trailing behind him.
Adolphus would never have taken the lead.
My father was the kind of wolf who sat in the center of the circle and sent his soldiers out to take the brunt of the attack, using their bodies as a shield for his own hide.
Magnus was a shield himself. The steady, powerful rhythm of his tail cleared the path ahead. He wasn't a jailer; he was a guardian. And in this house of monsters, I didn't know which one was more terrifying.
Gunnar’s shadow fell over me. In his wolf form, Gunnar was a thick-set, silver-grey brawler. He approached with the swagger of a male who knew he was charming in any skin. He let out a playful huff and nudged my shoulder with his snout, a move that was half-invitation, half-challenge.
A low, guttural vibration started in the earth beneath me. It wasn't my growl. It was Vidar’s.
Vidar’s black form launched from the shadows before Gunnar could even blink. He didn't bark; he exploded. He slammed into Gunnar’s side with enough force to send the silver wolf tumbling across the damp grass.
I stood back, my hackles rising, my tail tucked tight as I watched the dynamic shift. Earlier, Ivar had tumbled around me, nipping at my ears like the pup he was, and Vidar hadn't moved a muscle. But Gunnar was a grown male, a predator in his prime. Competition.
Vidar was on a serious, lethal attack. He snapped at Gunnar’s throat; his teeth clicking together was the sound of a closing trap. He was a whirlwind of black fur and snarling fury. But as I watched, my wolf’s instincts began to read the play.
Gunnar wasn't fighting back. Not really. He was toying with Vidar, dancing away from the snaps with a boxer’s agility, his ears forward in a mocking, playful tilt.
He was letting Vidar vent the territorial rage without escalating it into a bloodbath.
But he was making sure Vidar knew he wasn't afraid.
Before the first drop of blood could hit the ground, Magnus intervened. The gray wolf came between his brothers and nudged Gunnar away with his head. With a flick of his tail, Magnus led Ivar and Gunnar away, disappearing back into the deep shadows of the tree line to give the groom his space.
I stood alone in the clearing with Vidar. He was pacing a tight circle around me, his chest heaving. His golden eyes glowed with a dark, obsessive light.
I knew what this was. He was marking me. He was telling the world—and his brothers—that I was a resource he would kill to keep. He might as well just pee on my leg and get it over with.
As if he’d heard me, Vidar stopped his pacing. He walked a few feet away, toward the path where his brothers had disappeared. He lifted a leg and marked a long, deliberate line across the moss and roots.
The scent was a territorial roar; a chemical border that separated the two of us from the rest of the pack. He wasn't just my husband-to-be; he was my jailer, and he had just finished building the fence.
A flicker of movement near a rotted log caught my wolf's attention. Human Addie might have cooed at the soft ears and the twitching nose of the rabbit huddled in the brush. She might have thought of it as a pet. The she-wolf didn't have thoughts; she had hunger.
My vision narrowed, the world turning into high-contrast shades of grey and silver.
The rabbit bolted, a frantic zig-zag of white fur.
I lunged, my claws furrowing the damp grass.
The creature was small and desperate. I was out of practice after too many lunch meetings and happy hours.
It leaped out of my reach, darting toward a thicket of briars.
A wall of black fur blocked its path. Vidar stood like a statue of midnight. His golden eyes fixed on the prey. The rabbit turned tail, terrified, and sprinted right back into the open—directly into my waiting jaws.
The crunch of bone and the warm, metallic burst of blood across my tongue was the most satisfying thing I’d felt in years.
I dropped into the grass, my tail thumping once against the earth, the primal satisfaction of the kill humming through my veins.
I began to lap at the fresh meat, the salt and iron filling my senses.
Vidar sat back on his haunches a few feet away, his chest heaving slightly, his tongue lolling.
He didn't move to take the kill. He wasn't the Alpha demanding his cut; he was a spectator.
He watched me with a gaze that felt like a caress, his ears forward, taking in the sight of my muzzle stained red.
Tentatively, I nudged the remains of the rabbit toward him with my nose. It was an offering; a recognition of the assist, a piece of the pack’s spoils.
Vidar huffed, a soft, vibrating sound. He used his snout to nudge the carcass back toward me. He didn't want the food. He wanted me to be full.
He stayed there, a sentinel in the dark, watching me eat until the last of the bunny was gone. For the first time, the cage didn't feel like iron. It felt like fur and bone and a brotherhood of teeth.
Like his mother had hoped, I wasn't dumb. I was too smart to know it wouldn't last.