Chapter 6
Fenris pushed off the hearth, his lips peeling back over elongated canines. A low, wet growl vibrated in his throat.
"You care so much for the old man’s honor, Lucian? Or are you just buying time to sneak that little human slut out through the postern gate?"
Up in the gallery, my nails dug into the wooden railing.
Lucian didn't take the bait. He didn't blink. But I saw the corded muscle along the side of his neck tighten, the raw instinct of the mate bond surging beneath his skin like lightning behind clouds. He forced a cold, dismissive smirk onto his lips.
"The human is irrelevant, Fenris," Lucian lied, his tone so flat, so effortlessly detached that for a terrifying second, it stung even me. "She is a pet the old man kept to amuse his vanity. When the rite is done and the succession is decided, she can starve in the woods for all I care. But until the eclipse, the threshold holds. I have posted twelve western sentinels at the landing of the high stairs. If any of your curs steps foot on the third riser before the moon turns red, they die."
Fenris took two heavy strides forward, closing the distance until his chest was inches from Lucian’s. Fenris was half a head taller, his bulk casting a broad shadow over his younger brother.
"You think twelve scouts can hold that staircase against me?" Fenris whispered, loud enough for every elder to hear. "When that red light touches the snow, Lucian, I will tear those ironwood doors off their hinges. If you are standing on the landing, I will break your spine over my knee and make you watch as I rip the old man's heart from his ribs."
Lucian didn't step back. He didn't yield an inch of ground. He tilted his chin up, meeting his brother’s feral glare with eyes as cold as a frozen lake.
"Try it," Lucian murmured. "And see which of us leaves his heart on the stone."
The two brothers stood locked in silent, murderous tension, the primal dominance rolling off them in suffocating waves that made the lesser wolves in the hall whimper and avert their eyes.
Finally, Elder Garek struck his wooden staff against the stones.
"Enough!" the old wolf wheezed. "The council has heard the arguments. Pack law shall be observed. Fenris, your warriors will hold the lower courtyard. Lucian, your sentinels will hold the landing. No blood shall be shed on the sacred stairs until the eclipse touches the crest of Ironcrag. If the Alpha does not emerge when the moon turns red... the doors will be breached for the Rite of the Living Heart."
Fenris sneered, spitting into the fire pit. He turned on his heel, his heavy wolf pelt swirling around his massive frame as he stormed out of the hall, his pack commanders following in a tight, snarling pack.
The hall slowly emptied, warriors muttering in hushed, anxious whispers.
Lucian remained standing by the table. He retrieved his throwing knife with a sharp pull, wiped the blade against his thigh, and sheathed it.
Then, as if he knew the exact spot where I was hidden among the rafters, he tilted his head toward the high gallery.
Our eyes met through the gloom.
There was no cold detachment in his gaze now. No dismissive cruelty. The storm in his gray eyes was raw, agonizingly vulnerable, burning with a fierce, desperate plea: *Stay hidden. Stay safe.*
He pressed two fingers against his lips, touched them to the iron clasp over his heart, and turned toward the stairwell leading to the high defenses.
I pulled back into the shadows, my own heart aching with a hollow, suffocating intensity. He was risking his life to buy me forty-eight hours.
I couldn't waste them.
***
Midnight arrived with the sound of freezing rain lashing against the high lancet windows of the fortress.
I climbed the narrow spiral staircase leading to the high solar. At the landing, Lucian’s western sentinels stood like statues, their faces hidden beneath dark wolf-skull helms, their spears crossed before the heavy arched entrance.
When they saw me, they did not reach for their weapons. Lucian had clearly commanded them to let me pass. The lead guard gave a curt nod and pulled back the heavy iron bar of the outer vestibule, allowing me into the narrow ante-chamber.
"You have until dawn, girl," the guard whispered, his voice muffled by iron. "After that, the berserkers are moving their equipment into the lower tower. It won't be safe to walk these stairs."
"I understand," I replied softly.
I stood before the final barrier: the massive ironwood doors of Oberon’s private solar.
The wood was three inches thick, reinforced with blackened steel bands and forged rivets that had turned aside catapult stones during the border sieges. The heavy oak crossbar was currently resting in its wall-brackets, but the side wicket—a small, reinforced door meant for servants—was slightly ajar.
A sickly, coppery smell seeped through the crack.
Blood. Sweat. And that unnatural, ozone tang of an Alpha whose internal magic was boiling over.
I pushed the wicket open and stepped inside.
The solar was cavernous, its vaulted ceilings lost in thick, suffocating darkness. The only illumination came from a massive iron brazier burning low in the center of the room, casting dancing, blood-red shadows against the tapestries of ancient battles.
The heavy oak furniture had been smashed to kindling. Books and tactical maps lay shredded across the floor, their parchment soaked in spilled wine and dark, viscous fluid that looked suspiciously like black bile.
And in the center of the room, kneeling beside the high stone altar of the First Alpha, was Oberon.
My breath caught in my throat.
He had stripped off his heavy furs. His massive, scarred torso was bare, glistening with an unnatural, feverish sweat. The black veins were no longer just spidery threads; they were thick, pulsing cords that bulged beneath his bronze skin, crawling up his neck, across his jawline, and spidering into his hairline like an invasive black ivy.
His wrists and ankles were bound by heavy, links of cold-forged silver chain—chains thick enough to hold a harbor barge—anchored directly into iron rings driven four feet deep into the granite floor.
The silver was burning him. The metal sizzled against his flesh, sending thin wisps of acrid white smoke into the air, the skin around the cuffs charred black and weeping clear fluid. Shifters could not tolerate silver; prolonged exposure caused agonizing, paralyzing pain that suppressed their ability to shift into their dire forms.
Oberon had deliberately chained himself with the one thing that could cripple a wolf of his stature.
"You... bolted the wicket?" Oberon’s voice sounded like two grinding millstones. It was barely recognizable, dragged through a throat raw from roaring.
"I did," I whispered, stepping forward with agonizing caution.
*Clank.*
Oberon’s head snapped up.
A chill of pure, primitive terror paralyzed my limbs.
His eyes were completely gone. The golden amber had been swallowed whole by an ink-black abyss that seemed to drink the light from the brazier. His canines had elongated, protruding over his cracked, bleeding bottom lip, and when he drew breath, the sound was a wet, guttural rattle that rattled the silver flagons across the room.
