Three sets of tracks cut through the snow behind mine.

Too even. Too patient.

I stopped beneath a leaning pine and listened.

The forest went silent with me.

My wolf stirred weakly inside my chest. The rejection had left her raw, barely able to surface.

Shift, I urged.

A pained whine answered.

Not yet.

I looked uphill. The Blackpine ridge curved west toward the Royal boundary, a stretch of old land Silvercrest wolves avoided because it belonged directly to the Alpha King.

If I could reach it, Pack assassins would have to decide whether killing me was worth violating Royal territory.

A branch snapped to my right.

I ran.

The first attacker burst from the pines ten seconds later.

He wore no Pack crest, but his boots were military issue and his knife grip was trained. He did not slash for my throat.

He grabbed the front of my coat and tore at the pockets.

"Where is it?"

The bottle.

I drove my elbow into his nose.

Cartilage cracked. He cursed and loosened his grip.

I seized a jagged river stone from the snow and smashed it against his temple.

He fell to one knee.

"She has it on her!" he shouted.

A second man came from my blind side.

His blade cut across my ribs.

Cold fire ripped through my body.

I stumbled, clapping a hand to the wound. Blood soaked instantly through my sweater.

The cut should have begun closing.

It did not.

Silver powder glittered along the blade.

"Do not kill her yet," the second man yelled. "Find the vial first."

There was no doubt now.

They were not random rogues.

Someone inside Silvercrest knew I had kept the medicine.

I kicked backward, caught the second attacker in the knee, and ran uphill.

"Push her toward the ridge!" a third voice called.

That order chilled me more than the knife.

They were herding me.

I changed direction abruptly, dropping down a narrow hunting trail I remembered from herb-gathering trips years ago. Thorn brush closed over the path behind me. I tore through it anyway, letting branches scratch my face rather than slowing down.

The wound in my side burned hotter.

My wolf tried to heal it and recoiled from the silver. I tore a strip from the hem of my shirt and cinched it around my ribs while moving. The pressure slowed the bleeding but made every breath shallow. If I stopped, the men would catch me. If I ran too hard, I would bleed out before the ridge. There was no good choice, only the one that kept me alive another minute.

I reached a frozen creek and stepped onto the ice.

A knife struck the surface beside my boot.

Cracks spidered outward.

I jumped for the opposite bank as the ice collapsed behind me.

One attacker plunged waist-deep into black water, swearing violently. The others kept coming.

I climbed.

The ridge rose ahead, marked by old black stones carved with the Royal crown.

Fifty yards.

My vision blurred.

Blood dripped from my fingertips.

"Mia!" the leader shouted behind me. "Stop running and this ends quickly."

He knew my name.

I turned long enough to see his face beneath the hood.

I knew him too.

Rafe Collins. A Silvercrest border scout who had eaten at my table after winter patrols.

"Ethan sent you?" I shouted.

His expression flickered.

"Give me the bottle."

"That was not my question."

"You should have signed the clean surrender."

The answer hit harder than any knife.

Maybe Ethan had not personally ordered the ambush. Maybe Sophia had. Maybe Voss had. But Silvercrest men were hunting me with access to my exile route, and Ethan's signature had put me on that path alone.

I turned and ran again.

Behind me, Rafe shouted for the others to spread out. Their formation was the same one Silvercrest scouts used to corner border raiders. I had helped pay for the winter training program that taught them. The thought almost made me laugh. Even here, bleeding in the snow, I was being hunted with tools I had helped build.

Twenty yards.

Ten.

Rafe tackled me from behind.

I hit the frozen ground hard enough to see white sparks.

He rolled me onto my back and drove one knee against my injured ribs.

"Search her boots," he ordered.

The second man grabbed my ankle.

Panic sharpened everything.

I kicked him in the mouth, twisted, and sank my teeth into Rafe's wrist.

He roared and punched me across the face.

My head snapped sideways.

The world dimmed.

"Enough," he snarled. "Cut the coat apart."

A blade slid beneath my collar.

Then the forest changed.

Every sound vanished.

Not quiet.

Submission.

The men froze above me.

A pressure rolled through the trees so powerful my battered wolf lifted her head inside me.

Rafe went pale.

"Royal aura," he whispered.

A huge black wolf stepped onto the ridge.

He was larger than any Alpha I had ever seen, his coat streaked with dark silver. Gold eyes burned through the snowfall.

One attacker scrambled backward. "We crossed the line."

The wolf lunged.

He hit the man so hard both bodies vanished into the brush. A scream ended in a wet crack.

The second attacker ran.

The wolf caught him in three strides.

Rafe dragged me upright and pressed his silver blade to my throat. "Back off!"

The wolf stopped.

Gold eyes locked on the knife.

A growl rolled from his chest and shook snow from the branches.

"One step and she dies," Rafe warned.

The wolf shifted.

Bones snapped and fur receded. A tall man rose from the snow, bare-chested despite the cold, dark hair falling over eyes that still glowed gold.

Rafe's hand began to shake.

I recognized the black crown scar over the man's heart from every Royal coin minted in the territories.

Alpha King Damon Blackwood.

"You brought silver into my forest," Damon said quietly. "You put it against a woman under my boundary."

"She is Silvercrest property," Rafe blurted.

Damon's expression changed.

"No woman is property."

His eyes flashed.

Rafe's knife moved.

So did Damon.

I heard a crack, felt the blade fall away, and then the ground rushed toward me.

Strong arms caught me before I hit the snow.

The last thing I felt was Damon's hand closing around my wrist.

Something bright flared beneath our skin.

My wounded wolf stopped screaming.

And the King whispered one word against the winter air.

"Mate."