Tessa
My lungs burn. Each breath is a mouthful of razors. The world is nothing but white. White snow, white sky, white wind that screams and tears at my skin. I can’t feel my fingers or my toes. They are just distant, aching things that might not belong to me anymore.
There are two pains that keep me moving. One is the gaping hole in my chest where my bond with Kael used to be. It’s a cold, dead weight, an anchor of agony pulling me down. The other is the fire on my shoulder. The traitor’s brand. It pulses with a vicious heat, a single point of fire in a universe of ice.
I stumble. My knee hits a rock hidden beneath the snow, and I cry out, the sound swallowed by the storm. I fall forward, my hands sinking into the powder. It’s soft. It would be so easy to just stay here. To let the white take me.
He will not be the end of me.
The thought is a flicker, a stubborn ember refusing to be snuffed out. I push myself up. My body is a machine made of broken parts, but it still obeys. One foot. Then the other. I am walking toward nothing. Toward nowhere.
Then I smell it. Faint, almost lost in the storm. Woodsmoke. And something else. Something musky and alive. Animal.
Hope is a dangerous, fragile thing. It feels like swallowing glass. But I follow the scent. It leads me toward a dark slash in the landscape, a wall of gray rock that rises out of the snow drifts. The scent is stronger here. The air feels a fraction less cold, the wind doesn't cut so deeply.
A cave. It’s a shadow, a maw in the stone. A faint, almost imperceptible warmth breathes out from its depths.
I don’t hesitate. I don’t think. I crawl the last few feet, my body screaming in protest. I drag myself over the threshold, out of the wind’s relentless assault. The relative quiet is deafening. The darkness is a balm after the blinding white. I can see the source of the warmth now. The glowing, red orange heart of a small, controlled fire in the center of the cavern floor.
My strength gives out completely. I collapse onto the stone floor, my last conscious thought one of overwhelming relief. Warmth. I am warm.
I wake to a growl. It’s not the distant sound of a forest creature. It’s low, guttural, and inches from my face. It vibrates through the stone and up into my bones.
My eyes snap open. Two points of amber fire burn in the gloom, staring directly at me. They belong to a wolf. A massive one. Its fur is the color of charcoal and shadow, its body a collection of coiled muscle and predatory power that makes Kael and his warriors look like pups. A line of white teeth is bared, saliva dripping from a black lip. The growl deepens, a promise of violence.
My body is too weak to run, too frozen to fight. All I can do is stare back into those lethal eyes, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Then something impossible happens. The air around the beast shimmers, distorting like a heat haze. Bones crack and pop, a sound of gruesome transformation that echoes in the enclosed space. The massive wolfish form collapses inward, reforming, stretching. Where the beast was, a man now stands.
He is tall, broader than any wolf shifter I have ever seen. He is naked to the waist, his skin a canvas of old scars that twist and overlap. A particularly jagged one cuts down from his temple, across his left eye, and disappears into a scruff of dark beard. His hair is long, black, and untamed. But his eyes are the same. Amber. Burning with a feral, untamed light. He radiates a raw, immense power that presses down on me, making the very air feel heavy.
“Get out,” he says. His voice is a low rumble, like rocks grinding together. It’s not a request. It’s a command backed by the certainty that it will be obeyed.
I try to push myself up, to obey, but my limbs are numb and unresponsive. A weak, pathetic whimper escapes my lips. “I can’t.”
He takes a step closer, his shadow falling over me. I can feel the heat coming off his body. “This is my lair. My territory. You are trespassing.”
“The storm,” I rasp, my throat raw. “I was… lost.”
“Not my problem,” he says, his face a mask of stone. He reaches down, his hand wrapping around my upper arm. His grip is like iron, and even through the thin fabric of my tunic, his touch is shockingly warm. He starts to haul me to my feet, to drag me back towards the entrance and the blizzard beyond.
I cry out as his hand brushes against my shoulder. The pain of the brand, a fiery, weeping wound, explodes. It’s a sound of pure agony, sharp and piercing in the quiet of the cave.
He stops instantly. His hand freezes on my arm. He looks down, his gaze following the source of my pain. My tunic has been pulled aside, exposing the raw, ugly mark on my shoulder. The perverted crescent moon, blackened and blistered, a symbol of my disgrace.
The man goes utterly still. His amber eyes fix on the brand. I see a muscle jump in his jaw. The feral hostility in his gaze doesn't vanish, but something else joins it. A flicker of… what? Not pity. Something harder. Recognition.
He lets go of my arm as if it has burned him. “Who did that to you?” His voice is different now. The command is gone, replaced by a flat, dangerous edge.
I stare at him, confused by the sudden shift. He is Adrian. The Ghost of the Wastes. A rogue Alpha, whispered about in hushed, frightened tones. A killer who slaughters any who cross his path. He should be throwing me out to die, not asking questions.
“Answer me,” he growls, the impatience returning.
“My Alpha,” I whisper, the words tasting like poison in my mouth. “My… mate.”
A bitter, humorless sound that isn't quite a laugh escapes him. “A mate doesn't do that. An Alpha who does that isn't worthy of the title.”
My breath hitches. No one defended me. No one even questioned it. But this man, this feral rogue, his first reaction is to condemn the act, not the victim.
“He said I was a traitor,” I say, the words tumbling out on a wave of desperation. “He lied. He branded me. He broke our bond and cast me out.”
Adrian looks from the brand to my face, his expression unreadable. He studies the tears freezing on my cheeks, the gauntness of my features, the utter despair in my eyes. His gaze is so intense it feels like he is peeling back my skin to see the soul beneath.
“There is no justice in a brand like that,” he says, his voice low. “Only politics. And fear.” He says the words with the certainty of a man who knows them intimately.
He turns away from me then, stalking back towards the fire. For a terrifying moment, I think he’s going to leave me there on the cold floor.
He picks up a thick fur pelt from a pile against the wall and tosses it at me. It lands over my legs, heavy and smelling of wolf and pine. It’s warmer than anything I’ve felt in what feels like a lifetime.
“The storm will kill you if I throw you out,” he says, his back still to me. “You’ll be another frozen corpse on my doorstep come morning. An inconvenience.”
I pull the fur tighter around me, confusion warring with a sliver of hope. I don’t understand. This isn’t what the stories said.
“What are you saying?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
He finally turns to look at me, his arms crossed over his scarred chest. The firelight plays over the hard planes of his face, making the shadows deeper, the scars more pronounced.
“You can stay. Until the blizzard breaks.”
My body sags with relief so profound it’s almost painful.
“But when the storm is gone,” he continues, his voice leaving no room for argument, his amber eyes pinning me in place, “so are you. Understand?”
I look at this savage, dangerous man, this Ghost of the Wastes who has just shown me more mercy than my own mate, my own pack. I am a traitor, an outcast, a thing with no name and no home. I am in the lair of a killer.
And for the first time since Kael pronounced my sentence, I feel a flicker of something other than absolute despair.
“I understand,” I say. And I do. This is not a rescue. It is a temporary truce with death itself.
