Prologue - Dani #2
“Still nothing,” she smiled brightly, shrugging as if they were discussing the weather, “but it’s not unheard of. Maybe after graduation. He said a change of scenery might—”
“Change of scenery?” Arthur repeated, leaning back against one of the desks, the wood groaning underneath his weight. Eighteen years old, and already one of the largest wolves in the Nordan pack. It was reflected in his ridiculous height, the breadth of his shoulders, the heaviness of his brow.
The Ice Bear, they were beginning to call him. It made sense. She’d seen his wolf. A silvery-white monstrosity with ice-blue eyes and slavering jaws.
His human form still had the piercing eyes and a budding collection of scars. But his hair, kept long and pulled back into a bun to the eternal irritation of the human schoolteachers, was chestnut brown, his skin ruddy with a suntan.
He looked like he belonged in the mountains, the glaciers, the pure wilderness that surrounded them. And he did.
She, on the other hand…
“College, Arthur,” she said, hopping up onto the desk opposite him, propping her chin on her hand. “I want to go somewhere warm. California, maybe.”
He scowled and gave a rumbling grunt. She had a sudden vision of lying against his chest as he made that sound, of feeling the vibrations over her body. Goosebumps broke out on her arms.
“I don’t see why you would leave,” he said. “Most of the pack doesn’t bother with human college. They stay with their people. Where they belong.”
“That’s just it,” she said, chewing her lip. “I’m not sure I do belong here.”
“That’s bullshit, of course you do.”
“Come on,” she sighed, “my parents have been gone for nearly two years now. As soon as I turned eighteen, the pack stopped having any legal power over me, and I’m not exactly what you’d call popular amongst them. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“You’re my oldest friend,” he shot back. “You belong here. At my side. Where you’ve always been.”
Dani swallowed, heat flaring low in her stomach at the words at my side. He said it so easily. So casually. As if those words meant the same thing to him as they did to her.
As if he understood what they did to her.
A memory flashed. Him walking past her in the hallway with his pack friends. He hadn’t even looked at her.
She forced a small laugh. “Right. By your side. Except when we’re in public, of course.”
Arthur’s brows drew together. The shift in him was immediate, shoulders squaring, jaw tightening, that familiar flash of irritation crossing his features. “Dani…”
“No, really,” she said lightly, though her fingers dug crescent marks into her palms. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten the rules. No talking during lunch. No sitting together on pack nights. No acknowledging me in the hallways.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s true.”
He pushed off the desk, boots thudding softly against the floor. “You know it’s not like that.”
She barked a humorless laugh. “Really? Because it feels exactly like that. When am I ever ‘at your side?’”
Arthur exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. “Dani, I’m trying to protect you. You know what the others say. What they’d think if they—”
“What? If they thought we were friends?” Her voice cracked, high and thin. “Arthur, they already think the worst. They always have.”
“That’s why I can’t—”
“Can’t what?” Her chest squeezed painfully. It hit her then. The utter unfairness of it all. His hypocrisy. He had never seen it. The looks she was given, the jeers, the taunts.
The cruelty of his friends when he wasn’t there to temper them.
And she’d never let him see. She’d rather die than confirm to him what he already thought.
That she was weak.
He wasn’t protecting her at all. If he stood proudly beside her, nobody would dare torture her. They would respect her, or at least respect him too much to carry on their vitriol towards her.
Another thought followed, as heavy and suffocating as a tidal wave.
Maybe he did know that. And he didn’t want to pay the price of openly associating with someone like her.
Anger bubbled in her chest, hot and red and rising. “What, can’t be seen with the pathetic, broken wolf who can’t shift? Don’t pretend this is about protecting me, Arthur, that’s bullshit.”
His nostrils flared. “It is about protecting you.”
“Liar.”
He flinched as though she’d struck him.
For a heartbeat, silence stretched taut between them. In the dim light, Dani could see every nuance of his expression. The frustration, the uncertainty, the guilt he would never admit aloud. He looked older in that moment, heavier. The future alpha already carrying the weight of an entire pack.
But she was done letting that be an excuse.
“You know what?” she whispered, sliding off the desk. “Forget it. I don’t want a secret friendship. I don’t want to pretend anymore.”
“Dani—”
“I’m done being invisible to you.”
She grabbed her bag off the floor and stormed out before her voice could betray her further.
She heard him curse softly behind her. Heard the scrape of a desk leg as he moved, maybe to follow. But she didn’t look back, didn’t slow down. Her boots echoed down the hallway, a rapid staccato of anger she clung to with both hands.
Better to be furious than heartbroken.
***
Outside, the sky had finally begun to dim, the sun slipping behind the jagged peaks of the Chilkat mountains.
Dani tugged her jacket closer, her breath a pale cloud drifting into the cold air.
Her car sat lonely in the lot, the last of the other vehicles already gone.
She stared at it, her jaw set, before turning to the woods.
She would walk. It was only half an hour, and she needed to clear her head. She could pick up her car in the morning.
It would have been nice to focus on the crunch of frozen earth beneath her feet, the rustle of evening breeze through the branches of the twisting trees rising above her head.
But the acrid taste of rage still choked her.
And worse, something deeper.
She would never be good enough for him. Even if she turned that very night, she’d still be the lost little wolf who only managed to shift at eighteen.
He was Arthur Wells. Heir to the Nordan. The young Ice Bear.
Her nose stung, and she wiped it furiously, telling herself it was only the cold.
She didn’t know how much longer she could take this. It would have been bad enough, being his friend when he couldn’t even bring himself to acknowledge her in public.
But he wasn’t just her friend. She wasn’t sure when things had changed. When she’d stopped looking at him and seeing a half-wild tousle-haired boy with a gappy grin on a new adventure. When she instead saw the muscles, felt the heat, first really heard the low rumble of his voice.
She was in love with him. She had been for a long time now.
And he…
He couldn’t even make eye contact with her in the hallway.
She broke through the tree line, arms hugging tight around her middle, the cold seeping through into her very bones. She couldn’t wait to get home and make a fire, curl up in front of it, maybe wallow with a crappy romance movie.
A snapping of twigs yanked her right back to the growing shadows of the icy evening.
Laughter, loud and jeering, came from just beyond the trees.
Shit.
She swallowed, instinctively taking a step back.
The laughter stopped abruptly, muffled footsteps growing closer.
She considered running. The first few houses at the edge of Skymist peeked through the branches; she might make it if she was fast.
No. Who was she kidding? Running had never worked before. Better to stand her ground.
As Fenred emerged, swaggering up to her with a few of his friends behind him, she planted herself steadily. Raised her chin. Set her jaw. Hoped her hands didn’t tremble as they gripped the strap of her bag.
“Well, well, well,” Fenred drawled, crossing his arms with an amused smirk. “Look what we’ve got here, boys.”
His cronies, Cato and Brann, flanked him, both grinning with the slack-jawed delight of predators finding cornered prey.
Dani’s pulse thundered in her ears. She forced her spine straight. “Leave me alone, Fenred.”
Fenred laughed, deep and mocking. “You hear that? Little Dani thinks she can order us around.”
“I’m going home,” she said, voice tight. “I can’t be bothered with your shit today, Fenred.”
“Oh, we’re just saying hello.” He stepped closer. “We’re out on patrol, you see? Gotta report any suspicious behavior to the alpha.”
“You’re not,” Dani fired back. “Why would the alpha ever trust patrol to you? All you do for the pack is get drunk and cause problems.”
Fenred’s eyes flashed in anger, and Dani took a step back. She wished she hadn’t. His gaze sparked.
“The hell do you know about what the alpha wants?” he sneered, advancing on her. “Like a shiftless little bitch like you would ever be allowed anywhere near important pack operations.”
“Please,” Dani scoffed, drawing herself taller even as her nails bit into her palms. “This whole thing is getting pathetic. Do you really think tormenting me is ever going to make you feel better about yourself? You’re a loser, Fenred.
The only reason you have a place in the pack is that your alpha buddies need a brainless stooge like you to shovel the shit while they go and do the important stuff. ”
She had hoped it would enrage him. Make him snap. Get this whole thing over with as quickly as possible, even if it would earn her a bruise or two. She just wanted to go home.
But instead, he took another two steps towards her, his expression contemplative. Something in it set off alarm bells in her head, some ancient instinct rearing itself and telling her to run.
“Always were a fiery one, you,” he murmured, lifting a lock of her red hair between two fingers. “Such a shame, really, that you’re such a useless waste of space.”
Her breath hitched, cold panic clawing her gut. “Let. Go.”
“You should be honored, really,” he continued, disgust and…
desire warring on his face. Her stomach rolled.
Why, why, why couldn’t she just damn shift?
She’d rip his face off his skull. “That the pack even tolerates you. We should have cast you out years ago. Maybe I’ll do us all a favor, and end you here and now.
Or maybe…” His fingers moved from her hair to grip her jaw, tight enough to bruise.
“Maybe we can find a use for you, after all.”
A slap echoed off the trees. Fenred’s head moved a fraction, face slack in shock, a perfect red handprint glowing on his skin.
Dani gasped. Her hand stung.
He blinked.
Black fury descended over his features, and before she could slip away, he slammed her into a tree. Pain burst across her shoulders. She whimpered, hands pushing weakly at his chest as he crowded her in.
Fenred’s eyes glowed faint gold. “You really are useless, aren’t you?”
Panic clawed up her throat. Her vision blurred.
“Stop,” she choked.
“Make me.”
His hand slid toward her throat—
—and froze.
A low growl rolled through the woods, deep as thunder, ancient as the glaciers. The hair on Dani’s arms rose, her body recognizing the sound before her mind could.
Fenred stilled.
Cato and Brann backed up, eyes wide.
Dani turned her head, slowly, like a creature trying not to provoke a beast, and saw him.
Arthur stood a few paces away, shoulders heaving, chest expanding with each barely contained breath. His eyes weren’t blue anymore.
They were ice.
His voice was a snarl. “Get. Away. From. Her.”
Fenred swallowed, stepping back only when Arthur took a single, lethal stride forward.
“Easy,” he said weakly, attempting a smirk, “we were just talking—”
Arthur’s growl deepened, vibrating through the ground beneath them. “Touch her again, and I swear on Lunarion’s name, I’ll rip your throat out.”
Fenred paled.
Arthur’s fists were shaking, not with fear, but with the kind of fury that could only come from something primal. Possessive. Instinctive.
The kind that terrified Dani almost as much as it relieved her.
Fenred swallowed. Dani could see him weighing up his chances. Arthur snarled sharply, baring his teeth, and Fenred reared back, jerking his head at the others. “Come on. Let’s go.”
The three wolves retreated into the shadows, tails tucked in invisible submission.
The moment they vanished, Arthur spun toward her. His voice was rough, breathless. “Dani. Are you hurt?”
She flinched.
Just barely, just enough for him to notice.
Arthur froze, pain slashing across his expression.
She opened her mouth, closed it again, her voice a raw whisper when she said, “You shouldn’t have followed me.”
“I’m glad I did. What the fuck was that?”
Dani swallowed, “Nothing.”
He let out a bark of laughter, utterly devoid of humor. “It didn’t seem like nothing. Those fucking—how long has this thing been going on?”
“Arthur…”
“Was this the first time?” he stepped towards her, arms extended, hovering. The space between them felt endless. She couldn’t do anything, just blink, lips pressed together tightly as tears welled in her eyes. His expression hardened. “This wasn’t the first time. Fuck.”
She squeaked as he whirled round and swung his fist into a tree. The wood groaned in protest and cracked, splintering bark falling to the floor. When he pulled his fist away, a hollow in the trunk gaped like a wound, the soft, light wood within a shock of brightness against the moss.
His shoulders heaved, rage written into every tremble of tense muscle. “I should have known,” he ground out, fists still clenched. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, a thousand confessions ramming at her throat, desperate to be released.
She could tell him. All of it. How long she’d been bullied. How small she felt. How lonely in the pack. How abandoned by him.
How she really felt.
But in that moment, it was all too much. So instead of speaking, she gave in to her yearning desire and wrapped her arms around his middle, burying her face in his shirt so that he wouldn’t see the tears.
For one terrifying moment, he stood still and silent.
And then he melted around her, arms wrapping around her, cradling her against the expanse of his chest. His face pressed into her hair, one hand tangling into her riot of red curls, his heavy breaths barely restrained.
“If anyone ever hurts you again,” he said, his muffled voice dark, “I’ll rip them limb from limb.”
She exhaled, shuddering, relishing these few moments of warmth. An island in the cold ocean of her life.
“Arthur. You’re the only one who could ever truly hurt me.”