Poison and Pine
The night air of the Bloodbane territory was freezing, biting through my thick wool coat like tiny silver needles.
I stood at the edge of the sprawling, dark pine forest, adjusting the heavy leather strap of my apothecary satchel.
Behind me, the massive packhouse was heavily fortified.
We had left Asher sleeping peacefully in the Alpha Suite, guarded not by ordinary warriors, but by Marcus and three of Kade's most elite, blood-sworn guards. No one was getting through that door.
"Are you sure about this, Freya?"
Kade's deep, gravelly voice broke the silence of the woods. He stepped out of the shadows, falling into step beside me.
He was wearing dark combat gear, a heavy black winter coat thrown over his broad shoulders. He looked exhausted, the pale moonlight highlighting the sharp, tired lines of his face. His right arm was held stiffly against his side to protect the fresh stitches I had given him hours ago.
"I have exactly seventy-two hours to save your pack and my life, Kade," I stated, not looking at him as I started walking into the dense treeline.
"The Nightshade Ash works by corrupting the water source.
If I don't find the exact concentration point and neutralize it at the root, my antidotes won't work fast enough. "
Kade didn't argue. He moved silently beside me, his massive frame acting as a physical shield against the freezing wind.
For the first mile, the silence between us was heavy, thick with the unspoken weight of what had happened in his room. He had taken a silver blade for our son. He had wept. And I had opened the mate bond to save his life.
"You shouldn't be out here," I finally muttered, glancing at his stiff shoulder as we navigated the treacherous, snow-covered roots. "If you tear those stitches, you will bleed out in the snow, and I won't be able to carry your massive body back to the packhouse."
A low, unexpected chuckle rumbled in Kade's chest. It was a beautiful, rusty sound that I hadn't heard in four years.
"I heal fast, little bird," Kade murmured, his golden eyes scanning the dark woods with lethal precision. "And I would rather bleed out in the snow than let you walk into a poisoned forest alone."
My heart did a traitorous flutter. I aggressively shoved the feeling down and focused on the sound of rushing water ahead.
The Blackwood River.
We broke through the treeline, stopping at the edge of the rushing, freezing water. Even under the moonlight, I could see it. The edges of the river, where the water pooled near the rocks, weren't clear. They were tainted with a sickly, iridescent black film.
I dropped to my knees in the snow, pulling a crystal vial and a pair of thick leather gloves from my satchel.
"Don't touch it with your bare skin," I warned Kade, carefully scooping a sample of the black water into the vial. I held it up to the moonlight. "Goddess... it's completely saturated. Someone dumped raw Nightshade Ash directly into the upper springs."
"Vivienne," Kade snarled, his fangs extending as he stared at the poisoned river. "She couldn't kill my warriors in battle, so she decided to rot them from the inside out before the Council summit."
"It's a biological weapon, Kade," I said, corking the vial. "And it requires a continuous supply to keep the water this toxic. The source must be—"
A twig snapped violently in the darkness to our left.
Kade moved instantly. The wounded, exhausted Alpha vanished. He completely eclipsed me, his massive body shielding me from the treeline as a guttural, demonic roar ripped from his throat.
Four massive, heavily scarred rogue wolves leaped from the shadows.
They weren't ordinary rogues. They wore the shredded remnants of Northern armor. Vivienne's assassins. They had been guarding the poison source.
"Stay behind me!" Kade ordered, his golden eyes flashing brilliantly in the dark.
He didn't shift. He fought them in his human form, his lethal combat instincts taking over.
The first rogue lunged, jaws snapping toward Kade's throat.
Kade sidestepped with terrifying speed, driving his uninjured fist directly into the wolf's ribs with enough force to shatter bone.
The wolf whimpered, crashing into the freezing river.
The second and third rogues attacked simultaneously. Kade grabbed the second one by the scruff, using the massive beast's momentum to hurl it into the third. It was a brutal, bloody display of raw, apex predator dominance.
But there were four of them. And Kade was injured.
The fourth rogue, a massive, foul-smelling beast with a missing eye, realized Kade was distracted. It bypassed the Alpha entirely, its bloodshot gaze locking onto me kneeling in the snow.
The beast lunged, its massive jaws opening wide to tear my throat out.
"Freya!" Kade roared in absolute terror, trying to break free from the two rogues pinning his injured arm.
I didn't scream. I didn't cower.
Four years in the wild had taught me that a healer knows exactly how to put a body back together... which means she also knows exactly how to tear it apart.
I didn't try to run. I dropped to one knee, waiting until the massive beast was mid-air, inches from my face.
I reached into my satchel, my fingers closing around a glass vial of highly concentrated Wolfsbane powder. I smashed the vial directly against the rogue's wet nose.
The powder exploded into a toxic, burning cloud directly into the beast's eyes and respiratory system.
The rogue let out a horrific, high-pitched shriek of absolute agony, its massive body completely missing me and crashing heavily into the snow. It thrashed wildly, blinded and suffocating, its inner wolf completely paralyzed by the concentrated powder.
Before the rogue could even attempt to recover, I moved.
I straddled the massive beast's chest, my knee pressing brutally against its windpipe. My hand flew to the leather sheath at my thigh. In a flash of silver moonlight, I drew my surgical scalpel. It wasn't a sword, but the blade was made of pure, lethal silver.
I pressed the razor-sharp silver edge directly against the rogue's carotid artery, breaking the skin just enough to draw a thin line of black blood.
The beast froze completely, letting out a pathetic, terrified whimper. One twitch, and I would sever its main artery.
"Shift," I commanded, my voice dripping with absolute, freezing venom. "Shift into your human form right now, or I will bleed you out into the snow like a stuck pig."
The rogue didn't hesitate. The massive wolf violently shifted, transforming into a naked, scarred man gasping for air, his eyes squeezed shut against the burning Wolfsbane.
I didn't move my scalpel. I kept it pressed firmly against his human throat.
The sound of snapping bones echoed behind me. I didn't look back. I knew Kade had finished the others.
Heavy, snow-crunched footsteps slowly approached me. Kade stopped right beside us. His chest was heaving, his hands covered in rogue blood.
I finally looked up at him.
Kade wasn't looking at the dead rogues. He was staring down at me.
His golden eyes were wide, the pupils blown completely black. He looked at my copper hair blowing in the freezing wind, my green eyes blazing with adrenaline, and the silver scalpel pressed flawlessly against the assassin's throat.
He didn't look horrified. He looked absolutely, devastatingly mesmerized. The sheer, primal obsession radiating from him was suffocating.
"By the Goddess..." Kade breathed, his voice a dark, vibrating rumble of absolute worship. "You are magnificent."
I ignored the violent flutter in my stomach and looked back down at the trembling assassin.
"Talk," I hissed, pressing the silver blade a millimeter deeper. "Where is the main supply of the Nightshade Ash? How much did Vivienne put in the water?"
"I'll tell you! I'll tell you everything!
" the assassin sobbed, his hands raised in surrender.
"The Princess... she paid us! She left three crates of the Ash in the northern caves near the waterfall!
She said if we poisoned the pack, the High Council would execute Alpha Kade for weakness, and she would take the territory! "
I looked up at Kade. We had our proof. We had the location.
"The waterfall is two miles north," Kade stated, his golden eyes finally shifting to the assassin. The lethal, unforgiving Alpha King returned. "I will handle the rest, Freya. Step back."
I stood up, wiping the blade of my scalpel on the snow before sliding it back into its sheath.
Kade reached down, hauling the sobbing assassin to his feet by his throat. "You brought dark magic into my territory. You threatened my Luna. There is no mercy for you."
I turned away as the sound of a snapping neck echoed in the quiet forest.
Kade walked over to me, grabbing a handful of clean snow to wipe the blood from his hands. He looked exhausted, but victorious.
"We have the location," Kade said, looking down at me, the dark obsession still burning brightly in his eyes. "We can destroy the crates and neutralize the water. You saved my pack, Freya."
"I haven't saved them yet," I corrected softly, looking toward the northern mountains. "We need to get to those caves before sunrise."
Kade didn't move. He reached out, his massive, blood-stained fingers gently wrapping around my chin, tilting my face up to look at him in the moonlight.
"Four years ago, I thought you were too fragile for this world," Kade whispered, his thumb brushing a speck of dirt from my cheekbone. The mate bond flared between us, hot and undeniable. "I was a fool. You don't need my protection, Freya. You never did. You are a Queen."
He didn't try to kiss me. He respected the line I had drawn. But as he looked at me, I saw the absolute, terrifying truth.
He was going to spend every single second of his life proving that he was worthy of standing beside me.
And as we started walking toward the northern caves, side by side in the dark forest, I realized with terrifying clarity... I wanted him to succeed.