"Stop breathing so loud. I can't hear a thing." Grandma Maeve's ear was cold against Elara's bare stomach. The edge of the kitchen table dug into her shoulder blades. "I'm barely breathing at all." "Then stop thinking so loud." Elara bit down on a laugh. Outside, someone was testing the ceremony drums. Two slow beats, then silence. Maeve's fingers pressed flat beside her navel. Her whole body went still. "Gran?" "Hush." Five seconds. Ten. The kettle ticked on the stove. Then Maeve lifted her head, and her mouth was hanging open. "What? Is something wrong? Is it-" "Two." Elara stared at her. "Two heartbeats, child." Maeve's voice cracked down the middle. "One fast. One faster. Fighting each other already." Elara's hand flew to her stomach. The skin was still warm where Maeve's cheek had been. Twins. She sat up so fast the table scraped across the floorboards. Her eyes stung. She laughed, and it came out wet. "Twins," she said out loud, testing it. "Gran. Twins." "I heard me the first time." But Maeve's hands shook as she tugged Elara's shirt back down. Then she caught Elara's chin and held it hard. "Does he know?" The laugh died in Elara's throat. "Not yet." "Elara." "Tonight. He's claiming me tonight, in front of everyone. I'll tell him right after." She swallowed. "I slipped a note under his door this morning. So he knows something's coming." Maeve's grip didn't loosen. Her thumb pressed into the hinge of Elara's jaw, the way she checked a patient's pulse. "Six weeks of sneaking out to the falls is not a promise." "He promised." "The council wants the Vale girl. Dorian's been pushing Crimson Ridge since spring. You know that." "Kaelen doesn't want her." Elara pulled her chin free. "He wants me. He felt it, Gran. The second he touched my hand, he felt it." She turned her right palm up without thinking. The thin silver scar across it caught the lamplight. Maeve looked at that scar for a long moment. Then at the door. The drums started again. Not testing this time. Steady. Calling. "You're late," Maeve said. "I know-" "Dress. Now." The dress had been Maeve's. Pale green, let out at the seams twice, smelling of cedar from forty years in a chest. Elara was still fumbling with the last hook when Maeve caught her wrist at the door. "Listen to me." "Gran, the drums-" "Listen." Maeve's nails bit into her skin. "If anything goes wrong tonight-anything-you come straight back here. You don't stop. You don't talk to anyone. You come home." Elara's pulse thudded against Maeve's fingers. "Nothing's going to go wrong." Maeve didn't let go. "Promise me." "I promise." Elara kissed her papery cheek. "Stop looking at me like that. I'm getting mated, not buried." She ran. The clearing was packed. Three hundred wolves, maybe more, shoulder to shoulder under a moon so swollen and red it looked bruised. Elara slipped in at the back. Heads turned anyway. "Is that the healer?" "In that?" "Did someone die and leave her their curtains?" A cluster of she-wolves stood by the torches. Bree Hollis, all glossy hair and borrowed pearls, didn't bother lowering her voice. Heat crawled up Elara's neck. She kept walking. A hand shot out of the crowd and grabbed hers. "You're late," Mira hissed. She was in her warrior blacks, braid pinned tight to her skull. "And you're glowing. Why are you glowing?" "I'm not." "You look like you swallowed a lantern." "Later. I'll tell you later." Elara squeezed her fingers. Her own were ice cold. "Where is he?" Mira jerked her chin toward the altar. Kaelen Draven stood on the black stone at the head of the clearing, bare-armed in the cold, the Ironfang sigil inked dark over his heart. He wasn't talking to anyone. He didn't have to. The pack had left a full arm's length of empty air around him. Then his head turned. Straight to her. Through two hundred bodies, like he'd known exactly where she would be standing. The bond pulled tight under her ribs. Her breath snagged. His storm-grey eyes held hers. Slowly, he touched two fingers to the scar through his left eyebrow. Their signal. I see you. Wait for me. Elara pressed her palm flat against her stomach and didn't care who saw. "Brothers. Sisters." Dorian Draven stepped up beside his nephew. Silver at his temples, warm smile, arms spread like he wanted to hug the whole pack. The drums cut off. "Under the Blood Moon, our Alpha names his Luna. As his father did. As his father's father did." He let it hang. "And tonight, we are honored by guests." He gestured to the left of the altar. Elara rose on her toes. A delegation in deep red. Alpha Lucius Vale of Crimson Ridge, broad and grey-bearded. And beside him, his daughter. Seraphina Vale wore white. Head to toe. Her platinum hair was pinned up off a neck so pale it looked carved. "Oh, she did not," Mira muttered. "White? At someone else's ceremony?" Elara couldn't answer. Her mouth had gone dry. Because Sera was looking at her. Not at the altar. Not at Kaelen. Across the whole clearing, those ice-blue eyes had found Elara and stopped. Sera's nostrils flared, once. Her gaze dropped. To Elara's stomach. To the hand still resting there. Elara snatched it away. Too late. Sera's lips curved. Slow. Pleased. "Elara." Mira's grip tightened. "Why is Vale's daughter staring at you like you're dinner?" "I don't know." "You're lying. Your ears go red when you lie." "Mira." "A gift," Dorian called, "from Crimson Ridge. In friendship." Sera glided forward with a silver cup in both hands. The ceremonial moonwine. The cup only the Alpha drinks from before he names his mate. A murmur rippled through the crowd. That cup was always carried by the head of the council. Always. "That's not right," Elara whispered. "Since when does a guest-" "It's not right, Mira." Sera reached the altar. She stood close. Too close. She raised the cup to Kaelen with her head bowed, the picture of respect. Kaelen's jaw shifted. For one heartbeat, Elara thought he would refuse. Dorian laid a hand on his shoulder and murmured something. Kaelen took the cup. The wind turned. It swept down off the altar stone, carrying torch smoke and pitch and spiced wine. And under the wine, something else. Bitter. Green. Like nightshade stems left to rot in a closed jar. Elara's head snapped up. Her stomach clenched. She had smelled that rot once before, in the jar on Maeve's top shelf marked DO NOT OPEN. "Kaelen-" It came out as a croak. Nobody heard it. He tipped the cup back and drank it dry. Elara lurched forward. Mira caught her arm and yanked her back. "Are you insane? You can't interrupt the rite-" "Something's in it. Mira, I smelled something-" "It's wine. It's just wine." But Mira's voice had dropped. Her eyes darted to the altar. Kaelen lowered the cup. He swayed. Barely. One hand landed on the altar stone, like he'd missed a step in the dark. Sera caught his elbow. She rose onto her toes, her lips almost touching his ear. Her mouth moved. Elara couldn't hear the words. She could only watch Kaelen's shoulders go loose. "He's fine," Mira said. "Look. He's fine." He didn't look fine. He looked empty. "Alpha." Dorian's voice rang over the silent clearing. "The pack awaits your choice." Kaelen lifted his head. "Elara Quinn." Her name hit the crowd like a dropped tray. Gasps. Someone laughed, high and disbelieving. "The healer?" "He's joking." "Step forward," Kaelen said. Mira let go. Elara's knees almost buckled. She walked. The crowd parted for her, slow and grudging. Faces slid past. Bree Hollis with her mouth hanging open. Old Tobias the blacksmith, frowning. A pup on his father's shoulders, pointing. Her heels sank into the soft earth. She could hear her own heartbeat. And under it, so faint she had to be imagining it, two more. I'm coming. I'm right here. She climbed the altar steps and stopped an arm's length from him. This close, she could smell him. Pine and cold air and Kaelen. And that bitter, rotten green on his breath. "Kaelen," she whispered. "Look at me." He did. Her fingers went numb around the hem of her dress. His eyes were grey. Just grey. Flat as creek stone. No storm in them, no gold rising, no flicker of the man who had kissed her scarred palm at the falls six nights ago and called her his. He looked at her like a stranger who had wandered up the wrong steps. "Kaelen?" Her voice shook. "It's me." Behind him, Sera folded her hands. Waiting. Dorian's smile didn't move. Kaelen's hand came up. For one wild second, Elara thought he would cup her face the way he always did. Instead his fingers closed around her chin. Cold. Impersonal. He tilted her face up toward the red moon so the whole pack could see it. His dead eyes never left hers. "I, Kaelen Draven, Alpha of Ironfang," he said, "reject you." The words hit. Then the bond tore. It ripped up from under her ribs like a fishhook dragged through meat. Her knees cracked against the altar stone. White sparks crowded the edges of her vision. Somewhere far away, three hundred wolves were laughing. Kaelen's fingers were still locked on her chin. He bent down, close enough that his breath brushed her cheek, bitter and green. For one second, his eyes flashed gold. His lips barely moved. One word, scraped out of him so low only she could hear it. "Run."

Run. Elara stared up at him. The gold was already gone. Grey again. Flat. Like it had never been there. "Kaelen," she whispered. "What did you-" He let go of her chin. Her head dropped. She caught herself on her palms, the altar stone gritty and ice cold under her skin, and dragged in a breath that felt like swallowing glass. Above her, Kaelen straightened. His voice rolled out over the clearing, steady as a recited oath. "I reject Elara Quinn as my mate and as my Luna." The laughter got louder. "Told you he was joking." "Look at her. On her knees." "Did she really think-" Somebody whistled. Someone else let out a long, mocking yip, and half the young wolves picked it up. Elara's fingers curled against the stone until her nails bent. Get up. Her ribs felt split open. Every breath scraped the raw place where the bond used to be. Get. Up. She planted one foot. Then the other. Her legs shook so hard the hem of Maeve's dress trembled against her ankles. She stood. The yipping faltered. Just a little. Elara lifted her chin. Her eyes stung, hot and blurry, and she blinked once, hard. Nothing fell. She would not cry in front of these people. "The Alpha has spoken," Dorian announced. He sounded almost sorry. "By the old law, the rejected must answer." He turned to her. Gentle smile. Kind eyes. "Elara. Do you accept the Alpha's rejection?" The clearing went silent. Elara's mouth opened. Nothing came out. Maeve's voice, years ago, over a dying she-wolf in the sickhouse: A bond refused doesn't break, child. It rots. It eats the one who holds on. Slowly. Months, sometimes. And if she's carrying- Elara's hand flattened against her stomach. If she's carrying, it eats the pups first. "No," she breathed. Dorian tilted his head. "I'm sorry?" "No, I-" She swallowed. Her throat clicked. "I need a moment." "Take all the time you need, dear." He spread his hands to the crowd. "The pack will wait." The pack did not want to wait. She could hear it in the shuffle of boots, the snickers, Bree Hollis whispering dragging it out, how pathetic. Elara looked at Kaelen. Really looked. She searched his face for anything. A twitch in his jaw. A flicker of gold. The man who'd fallen asleep with his head in her lap at the falls while she counted the scars on his knuckles. He stared over her head at nothing. "Kaelen." Low. Just for him. "Please. Look at me. If you're in there-" Sera stepped up beside him and slid her arm through his. He didn't pull away. "Elara!" Mira's voice cracked across the clearing. Elara's head whipped around. Mira was shoving through the front row, elbows out, braid swinging. "This is wrong! Something was in that cup, she smelled it, ask anyone who-" Two warriors caught her by the arms. "Let go of me! Gideon! Gideon, you know this isn't-" The Beta, Gideon Shaw, stood at the foot of the altar. His jaw was rigid. He looked at Kaelen. Then at Dorian. He didn't move. Dorian winced like it pained him. "Gently," he told the warriors. "She's upset. Take her home." They dragged Mira backward, her heels gouging tracks in the dirt. She was still shouting Elara's name when the crowd closed over her. Elara's hands balled into fists. Sera watched her over Kaelen's shoulder. Head tilted. Patient. A cat at a mousehole. Waiting for her to make a scene. Waiting for her to refuse. Because if I refuse, Elara thought, I stay tied to him. And I rot. And they rot with me. Her palm pressed harder against her stomach. And she knows it. "Healer." Dorian's patience thinned by one degree. "Your answer." Elara drew a breath. It shook all the way down. "I, Elara Quinn," she said. Her voice came out small. She hated it. She cleared her throat and said it again, louder, so it carried to the back row where her grandmother wasn't standing. "I, Elara Quinn, accept your rejection." The second the last word left her mouth, the ground tipped under her. Something in her chest snapped like a green branch. Not a tear this time. A break. Clean and final. Pain punched straight down into her belly. She doubled over with a strangled sound. Both hands flew to her stomach. Hot. Cramping. A deep, wringing ache low in her pelvis that she recognized, because she had delivered forty pups and sat with too many mothers who lost them- No. No, no, no. Not them. Please, not them. She squeezed her eyes shut and listened. Past the laughter. Past the roar of her own blood. Nothing. She couldn't hear them. She wasn't Maeve. She didn't have the ear yet. She couldn't- The cramp eased. One slow notch at a time. Elara stayed bent over, panting, sweat cold on her upper lip. Please be there. Please. "It is done," Dorian called. "The bond is broken." The drums crashed back to life. Nobody was watching her anymore. Dorian lifted a silver circlet off a velvet cushion. The Luna's crown. Kaelen's mother had worn it at every feast for twenty years. Elara had let herself imagine its weight. Once. "Ironfang," Dorian boomed, "your Alpha names his Luna. Seraphina Vale of Crimson Ridge!" The roar nearly flattened her. Sera bowed her head. Dorian set the circlet on her platinum hair. Lucius Vale beamed from the side of the altar while his red delegation stamped their boots. And Kaelen- Kaelen put his hand on the small of Sera's back. The same place he'd put it at the falls, six nights ago, when he'd pulled Elara against him and said mine. Elara turned away before she had to watch anything else. She made it down the first altar step. The second. Her legs had no strength left in them. The crowd surged forward to cheer the new Luna and didn't bother moving for her. Shoulders knocked her sideways. Somebody stepped on Maeve's hem, and the old seam ripped with a soft, ugly sound. Come straight back here. You don't stop. You don't talk to anyone. "I'm coming, Gran," she whispered. "I'm coming." She reached the bottom step. A cool hand closed around her wrist. Elara froze. Perfume. Expensive. White flowers. And under it, faint, something sour, like medicine left too long in the sun. "Healer." Sera's voice was honey, pitched for the people nearest them. "Don't run off. I wanted to thank you." She pulled Elara into an embrace. To the crowd, it must have looked gracious. The new Luna comforting the rejected girl. A few wolves even clapped. Sera's arms were iron. Her nails dug through the thin green fabric, into the soft skin above Elara's hip. Then her cheek brushed Elara's ear. She inhaled. Slow. Deliberate. Breathing Elara in. "Congratulations," Sera whispered. Every muscle in Elara's body locked. "I can smell what you're hiding." Sera's hand slid between them, low and flat, and pressed against Elara's stomach. Once. Hard. Then she stepped back, smiling, and smoothed the wrinkle she'd left in Maeve's dress. "Get some rest, healer. You look exhausted." She turned and glided back up the steps to Kaelen. Elara couldn't get air into her lungs. Over the heads of the crowd, she watched Sera lift two fingers. A small, idle gesture. Like flicking off lint. At the edge of the torchlight, a broad-shouldered wolf in Crimson Ridge red peeled away from the delegation. Bram. Sera's personal guard. Last spring, during the alliance talks, Elara had splinted the arm of a pup he'd snapped in the training yard for staring at him too long. He didn't look at Elara once. He walked straight into the trees, down the narrow dirt path that led to only one place. Gran's cottage.

Elara didn't take the path. Bram had the path. Bram had longer legs, a head start, and nothing to slow him down. She hiked Maeve's torn skirt to her knees and went straight down the ravine. Shale skidded under her heels. A branch whipped across her cheek and left a hot, stinging line. She grabbed roots, rocks, anything, and half-slid, half-fell into the dry creek bed at the bottom. Pain flared low in her belly. She froze, palm flat against it, breathing through her teeth. Stay. Please stay. The cramp faded to a dull throb. She ran. Her phone buzzed against her hip. Once. Twice. Then it wouldn't stop. She dug it out without slowing. The screen lit up her shaking fingers. Mira: where are you Mira: they locked me in my moms house like im 12 Mira: E. a crimson guard just went down the cottage road Mira: the big one. bram Mira: DONT GO HOME Elara's thumb hovered over the screen. Gran was home. She shoved the phone back in her pocket and ran faster. The creek bed came out behind the cottage, below Maeve's herb garden. Elara clawed up the bank on her hands and knees. Mud soaked through the green dress. Lavender and crushed mint flooded her nose. The kitchen light was on. No sound from the road. No boots. Not yet. She shoved the back door open so hard it bounced off the wall. Maeve spun from the stove with a ladle in her hand. One look at Elara's face and she dropped it. It clanged across the floorboards. "What did he do?" "Gran-" "What did that boy do?" "He rejected me." It came out flat, like reading somebody else's diagnosis. "In front of everyone. And I accepted it." Maeve's mouth pressed into a thin crease. She didn't say I told you so. She didn't say anything. She crossed the kitchen in three steps, pushed Elara down into a chair, yanked up the muddy skirt, and put her ear to Elara's stomach. "Gran, there's no time, Sera's guard is-" "Quiet." "He's coming here-" "Quiet, I said." Elara clamped her mouth shut. Her knee bounced. Her eyes stayed fixed on the front window and the dark gap of the road beyond it. The clock over the stove ticked. Five. Six. Seven. Maeve let out a long breath against her skin. "Two," she said. "Still two. Angry about it, but there." Elara's whole body sagged. A sob punched up out of her before she could stop it. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth. "I felt something," she whispered. "When the bond broke. Right here. I thought-" "I know what you thought." Maeve straightened, her knees cracking. Her eyes were wet, but her jaw was set like a trap. "They're Quinns. They're stubborn. Now tell me about this guard." Elara talked while Maeve moved. Maeve hauled the old canvas satchel off its hook and started throwing things in. Clean bandages. Willow bark. The little tin of yarrow salve. A bundle of dried raspberry leaf. "-and Sera hugged me, in front of everyone, and she smelled me. She said she could smell what I was hiding." Maeve's hands stopped. Just for a second. Then she yanked open the flour crock, dug her arm in to the elbow, and pulled out a coffee can. "Gran, what are you-" Maeve popped the lid. Inside were rolled bills, rubber-banded. Twenties. Fifties. More money than Elara had ever seen in one place. "Forty years of house calls," Maeve said, and stuffed the whole roll into the satchel. "I always knew what it was for. I just didn't know when." "I'm not taking your-" "You'll take what I give you." "Gran, listen. There was something in the cup. Before he said it, I smelled it on his breath." Elara grabbed her sleeve. "Bitter. Green. Like the jar on your top shelf. The one marked-" Maeve went still. Not the ordinary kind of still. The kind Elara had seen only once, the night a pup was carried into the sickhouse with his throat torn open. "Who gave him the cup?" "Sera. Dorian walked her up to the altar." Maeve looked at her for a long moment. Her lips moved without sound, like she was counting something. "Gran?" "Later." Maeve turned back to the satchel. Her hands were shaking now. "That's a question for later." "He looked at me like he didn't know me. And then-" Elara swallowed. "Right before he let go, his eyes went gold. Just for a second. And he said run." Maeve's head snapped up. "He said that?" "Only to me. Nobody else heard." Something crossed Maeve's face. Grief, maybe. Or relief. It was gone before Elara could tell which. "Well," Maeve said roughly. "First sensible thing that boy's said all night." She jammed a jar of honey into the satchel, then a wool sweater, then a pair of her own boots. "You go west. Down through the gorge, to the river. Don't stop at the bridge. They'll be watching the bridge." "Come with me." "Don't be stupid." "I'm not leaving you here with-" "I'm seventy-one years old, and I've delivered half this pack." Maeve buckled the satchel and shoved it into Elara's arms. "Nobody's going to hurt the only healer for a hundred miles." "You don't know that." "I know you're carrying the Alpha's heirs. And every hour you stay on Ironfang land, someone's working out what that's worth." Maeve took Elara's face in both hands, rough and warm and smelling of sage. "So you don't get to argue with me tonight. Do you understand?" Elara's eyes burned. "Gran-" "Do you understand me, Elara Mae?" "Yes." "Good." Maeve kissed her forehead, hard. Her lips trembled. "Shoes off. Boots on. That dress will drown you as it is." Elara's fingers shook too badly to manage the laces. Maeve knelt and tied them herself, the way she had when Elara was four. Halfway through the second knot, she stopped. Her head tilted toward the front of the house. Elara heard it a second later. Gravel crunching. Slow, heavy steps coming up the road. Somebody who didn't need to hurry. Maeve was on her feet before Elara could breathe. She flicked off the kitchen light. Darkness swallowed the room. Red moonlight bled through the front window. A shape crossed it. Huge. Broad as the doorframe. "The back," Elara whispered. "We can both go out the-" "He'll smell you on the back step. He'll smell you in the garden." Maeve dragged her across the kitchen by the wrist. "The pantry window. It opens onto the slope, and the wind's coming up out of the gorge. It'll carry your scent away from him." The footsteps stopped on the porch. Three knocks. Polite. Almost gentle. "Evening," a deep voice called through the wood. "Healer Quinn? Luna's compliments. She'd like a word with your granddaughter." Maeve shoved the pantry door open. Jars rattled on the shelves. She wrenched at the little window above the potato bin. The frame was swollen with damp. It stuck. "Gran-" "I know." Three more knocks. Harder. The cups jumped on their hooks. "I can hear you in there, old woman." Maeve braced her palm against the frame and shoved. It screeched open three inches. Five. Cold air poured in, wet and smelling of river. "Up." Elara climbed onto the bin. The satchel strap cut into her shoulder. The window was barely wide enough. She got her head and one arm through, the frame scraping her ribs- Her belly. She twisted sideways to protect it, and her hip jammed against the sill. "I'm stuck. Gran, I'm stuck-" "Breathe out." The front door shuddered under a blow that rattled every window in the house. Maeve grabbed Elara's legs and pushed. "Gran, come with me-" "I love you. Don't you dare look back." The front door exploded inward. Wood splintered. Hinges shrieked. Something heavy slammed into the kitchen table and sent it skidding across the floor. Maeve gave one last shove. Elara tumbled through the window and hit the wet slope shoulder-first. Mud slapped her cheek. The satchel thudded down beside her. She rolled, gasping, and came up on her knees in the dark. Above her, the pantry window slammed shut. Inside, Bram's voice. Close. Bored. "Where is she?" "Gone," Maeve said. "You're too late." A pause. Then a long, slow sniff. The sound of a wolf breathing in a room. "No," Bram said. "She's still warm." The back door banged open. Boots hit the step. Stopped. Elara pressed herself flat in the wet mint. Mud filled her mouth. She didn't breathe. The wind gusted up out of the gorge, cold against the back of her neck. Carrying her scent away, just like Gran said. Bram stood on the step, a black shape against the doorway. His head swung left. Right. "The Luna told me something funny tonight," he said to the dark. Casual. Like they were chatting over a fence. "Said the healer's got a secret. Two of them." Elara's fingers sank into the earth. "Bring the girl back breathing, she said." A pause. "She didn't say a word about the rest." Inside the house, Maeve made a sound. Short. Sharp. Then a thud, like something heavy hitting the floor. Then nothing. Elara's whole body jerked toward the cottage. She caught herself, nails tearing in the dirt. Don't you dare look back. Bram tilted his head, like he'd heard her heart skip. "There you are." He didn't come down the steps. He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the porch boards. Then came the first crack. Loud as a snapping branch. His spine bowed. His shoulders split wider and wider, and the sound tearing out of his throat stopped being a man's. Elara knew that sound. Every wolf in Ironfang knew it. He wasn't going to chase her on two legs. He was going to hunt her.