CHAPTER ONE
The Blade at His Throat
SERAPHINE
Twelve years later, I entered the Lycan King’s palace with three knives, a forged invitation, and every intention of becoming a murderer before midnight.
Moon Court glittered like a lie.
Crystal chandeliers hung over black marble floors. Silver banners spilled from balconies three stories high. Nobles in velvet and fur drifted beneath painted ceilings while musicians played something soft enough to make everyone forget that half the kingdom was starving through winter.
I remembered smoke.
I remembered blood on snow.
I smiled at a duchess and accepted a glass of wine I had no intention of drinking.
“Lady Sabine?” a servant asked.
I inclined my head.
The invitation tucked inside my glove belonged to a minor northern widow currently sleeping very deeply in a roadside inn thirty miles away. She would wake with a headache and a purse heavier by fifty gold crowns. I considered that a fair exchange.
Across the ballroom, Lucian Veyr stood beneath the silver wolf banner.
The boy from Ashen Vale had become exactly the king the stories promised.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in black instead of ceremonial silver. He wore no crown, only a narrow band of dark metal across his brow. His hair was black enough to absorb the light. A thin scar cut from his left temple toward his ear.
His eyes were the same.
Silver.
Cold.
Impossible to forget.
People gave him space without appearing to do it. Even his own nobles bent around him like grass around a stone.
King Lucian the Merciless.
Lucian the Black Wolf.
Lucian, who had put down three rebellions in seven years and left the heads of two traitor lords above the east gate until ravens picked them clean.
Lucian, whose seal appeared on the orders that had recently sent royal soldiers into the border villages of Ashen Vale again.
I had spent six months burying people because of those orders.
Tonight, he would answer for them.
I moved through the dancers slowly, letting perfume and music cover my scent. The vial of nightshade oil on my wrists had been brewed by Mira from blackroot, cedar, and enough foul herbs to make even a tracking hound reconsider its life choices.
It would not fool a Lycan at close range.
I did not intend to give him much time at close range.
Lucian spoke with a white-haired councilor. To his right stood Darius Thorne, his commander, recognizable by the scar across his nose and his expression of permanent suspicion. To his left stood High Seer Malrec Ardyn in moon-white robes.
Malrec’s gaze swept the ballroom.
I turned away before it reached me.
Too sharp.
I took the servants’ corridor near the western gallery and climbed a narrow staircase to the second floor. My contact in the palace had promised Lucian would leave the ball at the ninth bell to review border dispatches in his private map room.
At the ninth bell, I was already waiting behind the carved screen inside it.
The room smelled of parchment, cedar, and winter air leaking through old stone.
Footsteps approached.
One set.
Good.
The door opened.
Lucian entered alone and shut it behind him.
He crossed to the table.
I slid the knife from my sleeve.
He bent over a map.
I stepped from behind the screen without sound.
Three paces.
Two.
One.
I raised the blade.
His hand shot backward and caught my wrist.
I twisted, slammed my elbow toward his throat, and drove my knee at his spine.
He moved faster than any wolf I had ever fought.
The room spun.
My back struck the map table hard enough to scatter sealing wax. Lucian trapped my knife hand above my head.
I reached for the second blade at my thigh.
His other hand caught that wrist too.
For half a breath, neither of us moved.
Then his scent hit me.
Cedar smoke. Frost. Something darker, like rain striking hot stone.
My wolf went utterly still.
No.
Lucian’s pupils widened.
His grip loosened.
The air changed.
The bond arrived without permission.
It was not gentle. It crashed through me like a door kicked open by fate itself. Heat streaked from my sternum to my fingertips. Every nerve became aware of him—his pulse, his breath, the violent restraint in his muscles.
Mate.
The word rose from the oldest part of me.
I wanted to be sick.
Lucian stared at me as though I had just become a ghost.
“No,” he said.
For once, we agreed.
I drove my forehead into his nose.
He cursed and released me.
I tore free, reached for the third knife, and slashed.
He caught my forearm. My sleeve ripped at the collar.
Silver light flashed beneath my skin.
The crescent mark over my left collarbone burned bright enough to illuminate the room.
Lucian’s face drained of color.
“Moonmarked.”
The word was barely audible.
The map-room door burst open.
Darius entered with four guards behind him.
Every sword cleared its sheath.
I turned, knife raised.
Malrec appeared in the doorway last.
His pale eyes went directly to the glowing crescent beneath my torn dress.
His expression sharpened into something far worse than surprise.
Recognition.
“Your Majesty,” he said softly. “Step away from her.”
Lucian did not.
“The Edict of Severance is clear,” Malrec continued. “Moonmarked blood may not bond with the royal line.”
Darius glanced from me to his king. He understood before the guards did.
“Lucian,” he said under his breath.
Malrec’s gaze hardened. “Kill her.”
I smiled without humor and tightened my grip on the knife.
Lucian looked at me.
I looked at him.
My mate.
My enemy.
The man I had come to murder.
Then the Lycan King turned toward his own court and said, “Anyone who touches her dies.”