Chapter 11
IRIS
Ihave never felt so helpless in my life.
The man I—the man who matters is fighting a war I cannot see, somewhere beyond the mountains where the canyon narrows and blood soaks into snow.
All I can do is stand on these battlements and wait, my hands gripping the cold stone until my knuckles ache, while something I do not fully understand pulses beneath my ribs like a second heartbeat.
The bond. Incomplete, unfinished, a thread stretched thin between us rather than the rope it will become when he finally bites me.
But even incomplete, it lets me feel him.
Rage burns through the connection, hot and metallic, the fury of an alpha unleashed.
Beneath that, a desperate focus that narrows the world to fangs and claws and the enemy in front of him. He is fighting. He is winning.
And then pain lances through my side like a blade of ice, and I double over against the parapet with a cry I cannot suppress.
"Iris." Signe's hand closes on my arm, steadying me. The healer has been my shadow since the pack marched at dawn, watching me with those pale eyes that miss nothing. "What is it?"
"He's hurt." The words come out strangled. I press my palm against my ribs where the phantom pain still throbs, fading now but leaving echoes I can taste in the back of my throat. Blood and copper and the sharp tang of adrenaline. "Something hit him. Cut him. I felt it."
Signe's expression does not change, but something in her posture changes. A settling, as though she expected this moment and prepared for it long before it arrived.
"This is what bonding means," she says quietly. "Even incomplete, the connection carries sensation. Strong emotion. Physical trauma." Her grip on my arm tightens briefly before releasing. "You will feel his death if it comes. As he would feel yours."
The words land like stones dropped into still water, sending ripples through everything I thought I understood about what I agreed to when I let him touch me.
When I went to his chambers and asked for all of him.
I knew the bond would change things. I did not know it would turn me into a vessel for his pain, a witness to wounds I cannot see or treat or prevent.
I straighten slowly, forcing my breathing to steady. The pain has faded to a dull ache, which means his wound is not mortal. He is still fighting. Still alive.
"How do you bear it?" I ask. "The wolves with mates. How do they function when their bondmate is in danger?"
"They don't." Signe moves to stand beside me at the parapet, her gaze fixed on the distant mountains where smoke has begun to rise in thin columns against the gray sky.
"A bonded wolf whose mate is threatened becomes something else entirely.
Feral. Single-minded. Capable of things they would never attempt in their right mind.
" She pauses. "It is why Korren fears you more than he fears Stellan's army.
A bonded alpha is unpredictable. An alpha fighting for his omega is unstoppable. "
I want to believe her. I want to believe that Stellan will carve through Korren's forces and come home to me covered in victory and his enemies' blood. But the ache in my ribs reminds me that he is not invincible. That somewhere in that canyon, wolves are dying, and he could be next.
The morning crawls past in agonizing increments.
I pace the battlements until my legs burn, then pace the great hall until Signe forces me to sit and eat something I cannot taste.
The partial bond pulses with sensation I struggle to interpret.
Fury gives way to grim satisfaction. Pain flares and fades.
Once, a spike of something that feels like triumph makes my heart race before it subsides into the steady burn of sustained combat.
He is alive. He is fighting. That is all I know, and it is not enough.
The messenger arrives just past midday.
I hear the commotion before I see it. Shouts from the outer wall, the heavy groan of the gate mechanism, the thunder of hooves on frozen ground.
Horses are faster than vehicles in the mountain passes, especially in winter when the roads become impassable.
I am on my feet and running before Signe can stop me, my boots slipping on the icy stones as I race toward the courtyard where a horse has collapsed in a heap of lathered flanks and heaving sides.
The rider is barely conscious. Blood mats his hair and stains the crude bandage wrapped around his shoulder. Two of the household guards haul him upright while a third leads the exhausted horse away, and I push through the gathering crowd until I can see his face.
"What happened?" I demand. "The battle. Tell me."
His eyes find mine, and I watch recognition flicker through the pain. The alpha's mate. The Luna. He tries to speak, chokes on blood, spits it onto the cobblestones before managing words.
"Korren knew. Had wolves waiting in the rocks above the canyon. Ambush." He coughs again, a wet and terrible sound. "We're holding, but the losses—" His head drops forward. "The alpha sent me to warn you. Korren split his forces. Strike team heading for the keep while we're distracted."
The words hit me a moment later. Then cold washes through me, colder than the winter air, colder than the stone beneath my feet.
"How many?" Signe has appeared at my shoulder, her voice sharp with command. "How many wolves and how far?"
"A dozen. Maybe more. Fast movers, no heavy fighters." The messenger's eyes are glazing. He is losing too much blood. "They'll be here by—"
He slumps in the guards' arms, unconscious or dead, and suddenly the warning horns are sounding from the eastern watchtower and the keep is erupting into chaos around me.
Korren sent wolves to take me while Stellan was away.
While the pack's strength was committed to the canyon, while the fortress stood defended by the old and the young and the wounded.
A strike team of fast movers to slip through the perimeter, grab the omega, and vanish before anyone could mount a pursuit.
I should be terrified. Part of me is. But beneath the fear, something fiercer is rising. Something that tastes like the training Helena drilled into my bones, like the woman I was before I ever heard the name Stellan Varen.
I will not cower in a locked room waiting to be taken. I will not be the prize Korren claims while the man I have chosen bleeds for his territory and his people.
I turn to Signe and see my own resolve reflected in her pale eyes.
"Where is the forge?"
The forge is hot and loud and exactly what I need.
The blacksmith is a grizzled wolf named Dag who lost his leg to a hunting accident twenty years ago and has spent every day since turning raw metal into weapons. He takes one look at me and reaches for a blade without being asked.
"Short sword," he says, pressing the hilt into my palm. "Silver-edged. Balanced for someone your size."
The weight is familiar. Not identical to the blades Helena trained me with, but close enough. I give it an experimental swing, feeling the way it moves through the air, and nod.
"What else do you have?"
By the time I leave the forge, I am armed like a woman expecting war.
The short sword hangs at my hip. A pair of silver daggers rest in sheaths strapped to my thighs.
A third knife, smaller and easier to conceal, is tucked into my boot.
Dag offered me armor, but the pieces he had were sized for wolves, too heavy and too bulky for the speed I will need.
Speed. Helena's voice echoes in my memory. You will never match a shifter for strength, but you can be faster if you train for it. Faster and smarter and more willing to fight dirty.
I find the remaining defenders in the courtyard, a ragged collection of older wolves, wounded warriors, and adolescents too young for the front lines.
They look at me with expressions that range from skepticism to outright hostility.
A human presuming to give orders. An omega who should be locked safely away while real wolves handle the fighting.
I do not have time for their doubts.
"Korren's wolves are coming for me," I announce, pitching my voice to carry.
"A dozen of them, maybe more. Korren has used me as his excuse to justify this war, and now he thinks he can use me as a pawn to break your alpha.
" I let my gaze sweep across the assembled faces.
"I am no one's excuse. I am no one's pawn.
I am luna of the Northern Pack, and I will not let them take this keep while our wolves bleed in the canyon.
They expect to find a helpless prize waiting to be claimed.
" My hand finds the hilt of my sword. "They are wrong. "
One of the older wolves steps forward, a scarred warrior with iron-gray hair and a missing eye. "And what would you have us do, human?"
"The eastern approach is the most vulnerable.
That is where they will come. I want archers on the walls and fighters at the gate.
Anyone who cannot fight should barricade themselves in the great hall.
" I draw the short sword and let the silver edge catch the light.
"And I will be at the front. If they want me, they can come and take me. "
Silence stretches across the courtyard. Then one of the older, scarred warriors laughs, a harsh bark of sound that holds something that might be respect.
"You heard our luna," he calls out. "To your positions. Let's teach these Blackridge dogs what it costs to come for our own."
The title jolts through me. Luna. Stellan called me that in front of the pack when he broke Ragnar's arm. I had not realized they accepted it.
I don't have time to think about what that means. The warning horns sound again, closer now, and then I see them coming through the trees.