The first thing I smelled was pine smoke.

Not cedar. Not jasmine. Just pine, and iodine, and something warm and dark underneath it, like rain on stone.

I opened my eyes to a low wooden ceiling. A tube ran from the back of my hand to a bag hanging on a hook. My stomach was wrapped tight in fresh white linen.

Someone had changed the bandage.

A log shifted in the stove. I turned my head.

A man sat beside the fire, elbows on his knees, sleeves pushed up his forearms. Broad shoulders. Black hair cut short. He was watching the flames, not me.

Then the air rolled over my skin, heavy and thick, pressing down on my lungs.

*Alpha.*

My hand shot out to the tray beside the bed. My fingers closed on something cold. A silver scalpel. I yanked it up and pointed it at him.

"Don't move."

He didn't. He just lifted his eyes.

Silver-gray. The same eyes from the snow.

"That's sharp," he said. "You'll tear your stitches if you swing it."

"Who are you? Where am I?"

"Soren Ashford." He stayed in his chair. Didn't even uncross his ankles. "Alpha of Ironcliff. This is a healer's cabin on our southern border. I was running patrol two nights ago and found you face-down in a drift."

"Two nights?"

"You lost a lot of blood."

I stared at him. The scalpel trembled in my fist. He hadn't come one step closer. He hadn't flared his aura to force me down, the way Calder always did when I argued.

Slowly, I lowered the blade.

"I'm sorry." My throat felt like sandpaper. "You saved my life, and I greeted you with a knife."

"Fair greeting for a stranger." One corner of his mouth tilted. "What's your name?"

"Laurel."

"Just Laurel?"

"Just Laurel. I'm from Silverpine."

He waited. I gave him nothing else. I set the scalpel back on the tray and tucked my hands under the blanket so he wouldn't see them shake.

"Silverpine," he repeated. He reached for a mug on the floor and turned it in his palms. "Busy pack this week. They're throwing a feast. Lanterns, music, the works. The whole border can hear it."

"A feast?"

"For their Alpha's new bonding." He took a sip. "Calder Thorne. He announced it the morning after you went into the snow. Said his former Luna walked away from her duties of her own free will. Then he finished a private bonding rite with a she-wolf named Livia that same afternoon."

The room tilted.

The same afternoon. While I was bleeding out under the pines, calling his name.

He'd been standing under the moon with her.

I pressed my fist against my sternum, right where the bond used to sit. It didn't hurt this time. It just felt hollow, like a house after a fire.

"Of her own free will," I said.

Soren watched me over the rim of the mug. "You're her. The former Luna."

There was no point lying anymore.

"He rejected me." The words came out flat. "In front of the whole council. Because I couldn't give him an heir. Everyone in Silverpine believes I can't get pregnant. Maybe they're right."

Something changed in Soren's face.

His shoulders dropped. The line between his brows smoothed out. He let out a long breath through his nose, and it almost sounded like relief.

Heat shot up my neck.

"What's that look?"

"Nothing."

"No. That was *something*." I pushed myself up against the headboard. My stitches pulled. I didn't care. "I just told you my mate threw me away because my body is broken, and you look *pleased*. What exactly are you happy about, Alpha Ashford?"

He set the mug down.

"I have an offer," he said.

"Answer my question."

"This is the answer." He leaned forward, forearms on his knees. "Be my Luna. One year. Stand at my side in front of my pack and help me get through every full moon."

I laughed. It cracked in half.

"You've known me for two days. Most of that I was unconscious."

"I don't need to know you for a contract."

"And what do I get?"

"A title. A home. Protection from anyone who comes looking for you." His gaze didn't waver. "And a seat at the next Alpha Summit, where Calder Thorne will have to look you in the face."

My pulse jumped. I hated that it did.

"And why does an Alpha want a Luna who can't give him pups?"

"Because I don't need an heir."

"Every Alpha needs an heir."

"Not me."

"Why not?"

He was quiet for a moment. The fire popped.

"That's a conversation for after you sign."

There it was. The catch. Always a catch.

"No." I peeled the tape off the back of my hand. "I spent seven years being Calder's answer to a problem. His shield. His Luna. His mistake. I'm not doing it again for a stranger with secrets."

I pinched the needle and pulled. A sting, then a bead of blood. I swung my legs over the side of the bed.

Soren didn't stand up. He didn't block the door.

He just reached into his coat, took out a folded sheet of paper, and held it out.

"Before you go," he said. "Read this."

I snatched it from his hand.

The Silverpine seal sat in the corner. Calder's signature sprawled across the bottom.

*Laurel, formerly Luna of Silverpine, has abandoned her post. Her jealousy toward members of the Alpha's household created unrest. Her failure to fulfill her duties left the pack weakened. In light of her departure, all lands, trade routes, and accounts under her management revert to the Alpha. The eastern grain agreement, previously credited to her, was negotiated under the Alpha's direction.*

My eyes caught on that last line.

The grain agreement. Eleven weeks of travel. Three winters of nobody starving. I'd sat across from the Riverbend elders until dawn with frostbite on two fingers.

*Under the Alpha's direction.*

He'd been home that whole time. Drinking with Livia's brothers.

The paper crumpled in my fist.

"He took everything," I whispered. "Even the parts he wasn't there for."

"He took what you let him keep," Soren said.

I spun around. "What does that mean?"

He finally stood. He was taller than I'd thought. He picked up another sheet from the table by the stove, a clean page with neat black lines, and laid it on the blanket beside me. A pen rested on top.

"It means you have a choice," he said. "You can walk into that blizzard alone. Or you can stand next to me. And from now on, every one of them will have to look up to see you."

The wind slammed against the cabin wall. Snow hissed at the window.

I looked down at the page.

*Contract of Union. One year. Ironcliff.*

And at the bottom, written in the same neat hand, already filled in—

My name.

Not *Laurel*. My full name. The one I hadn't spoken out loud since my mother died.

The one I'd never told him.

My fingers closed around the pen.

Soren said nothing. He just watched.

I touched the nib to the paper, and a single drop of ink bled out beside my name, dark and round, like the first drop of something that couldn't be taken back.