Sierra

The car slowed to a halt, the tires crunching on the gravel of the Northern fortress. My hands were shaking so hard I had to sit on them. This wasn't just some remote outpost. This was the lion's den.

"Get out of the car, Sierra," Ansel commanded. His voice was like ice, but his hand reached out and gripped mine. It wasn't a comfort. It was a warning. "And remember. You love me. If you look like you’re about to faint, I’ll give them a reason to actually worry."

I swallowed the lump in my throat and stepped out. The mountain air was biting, a stark contrast to the heat radiating from the man standing at the top of the stairs.

Giberano. The former King. Ansel’s father.

He didn't look like a monster. He looked like an elder statesman, his silver hair neatly combed, a smile on his face that didn't quite reach his eyes. Beside him stood a younger man with a sharp, rat-like face.

"Ansel," Giberano called out, his voice booming. "You’ve finally returned. And I see you didn’t come alone."

Ansel pulled me flush against his side, his arm heavy around my waist. "Father. Ricosta. I believe you were expecting us."

Ricosta, Ansel’s half-brother, stepped forward. He raked his eyes over me, making me feel like a piece of meat at an auction. "So this is the little Vanguard stray? The one Santiago was so eager to get rid of? I heard she was a murderer, not a prize."

Ansel’s grip tightened on my hip, his fingers digging into my skin. "Watch your tongue, Ricosta. You are looking at my fiancée. The future Luna of the North."

The silence that followed was deafening. Even Giberano’s smile faltered.

"Fiancée?" Ricosta laughed, a high, irritating sound. "You’ve been gone for forty-eight hours and you’ve found a soulmate? Does she even know about the curse, or did you forget to mention that in your marriage proposal?"

"She knows everything she needs to know," Ansel growled. The air around him began to vibrate with a low, dangerous hum. "She’s here to secure the line. Which is more than you’ve done with your string of tavern girls."

"Enough," Giberano barked, though he was still looking at me with intense curiosity. "If she is to be the Luna, she must be vetted by the Council. They are already inside. They heard the rumors of your arrival and they are... impatient."

We were led into a hall that felt more like a courtroom than a home. Twelve elders sat behind a long stone table, their faces etched with centuries of tradition and skepticism.

"Ansel," the head elder said, not even looking at me. "You claim this woman is your chosen. But the North does not accept claims of convenience. If she is the anchor to your curse, we need proof."

"What kind of proof?" I asked, my voice small.

The elder finally looked at me. "The bond of the North is sealed in blood and consummation. If you are to be his Luna, the union must be finalized tonight. Under the watchful eye of the Pack’s traditions. We will not wait for a spring wedding while the throne sits unstable."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "Tonight?"

"Tonight," Giberano added, his voice smooth as oil. "Unless, of course, my son is lying and this is all a desperate ploy to keep his crown."

"She stays," Ansel said firmly. He turned to me, his eyes dark and unreadable. "Take her to the royal chambers. Prepare her."

Before I could protest, two stern-faced women in grey tunics approached me. They didn't ask. They simply took my arms and led me away from the only person I knew, even if I hated him.

The preparation was a blur of rose-scented water and silk. They stripped me of my emerald dress, washing away the scent of the South until I smelled like the pine and snow of the North. They dressed me in a sheer, white silk gown that felt like nothing against my skin.

"You are lucky," one of the women whispered as she brushed my hair. "Many would die to be in the Alpha’s bed."

"I’m not lucky," I whispered back. "I’m a prisoner."

They left me in a massive room lit only by the glow of the fireplace. The bed was draped in furs, looking more like an altar than a place of rest. I sat on the edge of it, my heart hammering against my ribs.

The heavy oak door creaked open.

Ansel walked in. He had discarded his suit jacket and tie. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway down, revealing the intricate tattoos that told the story of his battles. He looked lethal. He looked beautiful.

He didn't say a word. He just walked toward me, his boots heavy on the stone floor. Every step felt like a countdown.

He stopped right in front of me. I had to tilt my head back to look at him. Up close, the scent of him was overwhelming—cedarwood and something uniquely him.

"They are waiting outside the door, Sierra," he said, his voice a low, rough velvet. "They won't leave until they hear what they came for."

"I can't do this," I breathed, my hands clutching the silk of my gown. "This wasn't the deal. You said three months."

"The Council changed the rules. My brother is whispering in their ears as we speak." He reached out, his large hand cupping the side of my neck. His thumb brushed over the spot where Santiago’s mark should have been, but was now just scarred, empty skin.

He leaned down, his face inches from mine. I could feel the heat of his breath on my lips. It wasn't the cold aggression from the car. This was something else. Something slower.

"I won't hurt you," he whispered, his dark eyes searching mine. "But I need them to believe you are mine. Truly mine."

He leaned in closer, his lips almost brushing mine, his hand sliding down to the small of my back to pull me against him. I let out a soft gasp, my eyes fluttering shut as the world narrowed down to just the two of us and the crackle of the fire.

"Sierra," he murmured, his voice sending a shiver straight down my spine. "Look at me."

I opened my eyes, and for the first time, I didn't see the Cursed King. I saw a man who was just as trapped as I was.

He started to lean in his grip tightening, but then a sharp, frantic scratching came from the balcony window.

A white wolf was perched on the ledge, its eyes glowing a frantic, bloody red.

Sierra

The glass burst inward in a shower of glittering shards, and the white wolf landed on the stone floor with a thud that rattled the silk against my skin. Frigid air from the balcony rolled across the chamber and bent the flames in the hearth sideways. I stumbled backward until the edge of the fur-draped bed pressed against my knees, and a thin, strangled sound escaped my throat.

Ansel moved faster than I could follow. One moment his hand had been sliding down my back, and the next he stood between me and the intruder with his shirt torn open and his fingers curled into claws. A low growl rolled out of his chest, and the temperature in the room dropped so sharply that frost crept across the shattered window frame.

The wolf did not attack. It staggered two steps forward, left a smear of blood across the flagstones, and then its body began to ripple. Bones slid and shortened beneath the pale fur, and the red glow in its eyes dimmed to a hard, tired amber. Within seconds, a man knelt among the broken glass, lean and rough-faced, with rust-colored hair and a scar slicing through his left eyebrow. He wore only torn black trousers, and a deep gash ran across his ribs, leaking steadily onto the floor.

"Put your claws away, Northern King, because I am the only reason your bride is still breathing," the stranger rasped, pressing a hand to his side.

Ansel did not lower his hands. "I know your face from the bounty boards, rogue, and I remember the price Ricosta placed on your head."

"Then you also know Ricosta is the reason I am bleeding on your floor." The man lifted his gaze to me, and something in his stare was so fierce and so familiar that my pulse stuttered. "My name is Red, and I have perhaps three minutes before the men outside decide this ritual has taken long enough."

I found my voice somewhere beneath my ribs. "I have never met you, so why would you risk your life to climb onto a balcony in a blizzard?"

"Because someone has to keep you alive until you understand what you are." He winced and swayed, and Ansel caught his shoulder with surprising speed to keep him from collapsing. "Listen carefully, both of you, because I will not be able to repeat any of this."

Red spoke in short, clipped bursts, as if every word cost him blood. The Council witnesses waiting beyond the door carried a censer of ceremonial incense, he explained, and Ricosta had spent two weeks lacing the resin with somnia root. A woman who breathed it would turn pliant and silent, unable to say whether she consented to anything at all. The elders would then declare the union forced, void under Northern law, and Ansel would stand exposed as a kidnapper who had dragged a sold girl into his bed.

"Under the old statutes, a false Luna is executed in the courtyard at dawn," Red finished. "Your brother does not need to kill you with his own hands, Sierra, because the law will do his killing for him."

The words slid down my spine like melting ice. I stared at Ansel, searching his face for surprise, and found only a muscle ticking in his jaw. He had already guessed, I realized, and the knowledge made me feel colder than the broken window ever could.

"You knew about the incense," I whispered.

"I suspected my brother would try something cruel." Ansel kept his eyes on Red. "I did not know he had found a way to turn the Council's own traditions into a noose."

Red let out a harsh breath that was almost a laugh. "There is more, and you will like it even less." He turned back to me, and his voice dropped until it was barely louder than the crackling fire. "I know what your mother was called before she hid behind a stolen name, and I know why she ran from the Vanguard in the dead of night."

The room tilted sharply around me, and my hand shot out and found the bedpost, and my fingernails dug into the carved wood hard enough to splinter it. "My mother left because she could not bear the abuse in that house, and she never told me anything else."

"She told you exactly what she needed you to believe." Red's amber eyes flicked to my neck, to the pale scar where Santiago's mark should have lived. "And that scar is not as dead as the Southern Alpha wants you to think, little one."

"What does that even mean?" I demanded, though my fingers had already drifted up to touch the ruined skin.

A thunderous pounding exploded against the oak door. All three of us flinched, and Ansel swore under his breath in a language I did not recognize.

"My lord Ansel," called a smooth, sugar-sweet voice from the corridor, and I felt my stomach turn over, because I had heard that voice mocking me at the gates only hours earlier. "Forgive the interruption, but the Council grows restless, and we have brought the blessing of the hearth to speed the ritual along."

"Ricosta," Ansel murmured, so softly that only Red and I could hear. "He could not even wait one hour."

"Hide me," Red whispered. "Put me anywhere, because if he finds me here, he will say you conspired with a wanted rebel, and that alone would justify a coup."

I should have hesitated, because trust had always been the most dangerous thing I owned. Instead, my body moved before my mind could argue, and I grabbed the heavy fur curtain that draped the balcony doorway and hauled it aside. Red slipped through the gap and vanished into the darkness, leaving only a few drops of blood glistening beside my bare feet.

"Sierra, the blood," Ansel hissed.

I dropped to my knees and dragged the hem of my gown across the stones, smearing the crimson into the white silk until it looked like nothing more than a careless stain. My hands shook so badly that I tore a small hole in the fabric, but the evidence disappeared beneath the shadows of the bed.

"Open this door immediately," Ricosta called again, and the sweetness in his voice curdled into something thin and sharp. "Or I shall assume my brother is struggling to perform his duty, and I will gladly send in the elders to assist."

A cruel laugh rippled through the men gathered behind him. Heat flooded my cheeks, partly from humiliation and partly from a rage so sudden that it startled me. I rose slowly and pressed my palms against the silk over my racing heart.

"Whatever happens next, you follow my lead," Ansel said in a low, steady voice. His eyes met mine, and for one fragile moment I saw no king, no curse, and no cold bargain in them at all. "Do you understand me, Sierra?"

"I understand that I am the only person in this castle who has no allies," I answered, and my voice came out steadier than I felt. "So I will follow your lead for exactly as long as you earn it."

The corner of his mouth lifted in the faintest, grimmest smile. Then he strode to the door and turned the iron latch.

The corridor beyond was alive with torchlight and grey robes. Ricosta stood at the front with his rat-sharp face arranged into polite concern, and behind him two elders carried a silver censer on a long chain. Sweet, heavy smoke curled from its perforated lid, and the scent hit me like a hand clamped over my mouth. It smelled of honey, of crushed lilies, and of something beneath those things, something bitter and green that made my tongue go numb.

"Brother," Ricosta said brightly, and his gaze slid past Ansel to land on me. "We heard a crash, and we feared you might be in some danger."

"A window latch failed in the wind," Ansel replied evenly. "Nothing worth your concern."

"How wonderfully convenient for you both." Ricosta stepped forward, and the elders followed with the censer swinging between them. Smoke spilt into the chamber in a slow, creeping wave. "Then you will not object if we begin the blessing right now, in the presence of every witness."

I drew one breath before I could stop myself, and the world began to soften around its edges. My knees sagged beneath my own weight, and the hearth fire smeared into long golden ribbons, and the pounding of my heart slowed to a lazy, distant drum. Somewhere far away, Ricosta's smile widened, and I heard Ansel say my name as though he were calling across a frozen lake.

Sierra

Everything felt heavy and warm and very far away, as though I were sinking through honey toward the bottom of a deep well. The elders' voices stretched into long, shapeless sounds that had no meaning. Only one thing remained sharp in the haze, and that was the hand locked around my wrist with a grip that hurt.

"Do not breathe through your nose," Ansel ordered, and his voice cut through the fog like a blade through silk. "Focus on the pain in your wrist and count my heartbeat."

I counted, because it was the only thing I could still do. His pulse thudded against my skin, strong and fast and surprisingly human, and each beat dragged me an inch closer to the surface. Somewhere behind him, Ricosta was speaking about tradition and blessings in his silky, patient tone.

Ansel did something then that I would never forget. He turned to the two elders holding the censer, took the silver chain from their hands with a calm that made them step backward, and walked straight across the chamber to the shattered balcony doors. With one sharp flick of his wrist, he hurled the burning censer into the howling night, and the sweet smoke tore apart in the wind.

"My lord, that vessel belonged to the Council," one elder sputtered. "It was a ceremonial heirloom."

"Then the Council may send the bill to my brother," Ansel replied. He ripped a strip from the silk bed hangings, dunked it in the washbasin beside the wardrobe, and pressed it over my nose and mouth. "Breathe through that, Sierra, and keep your eyes on me."

Cold, wet fabric slapped away the worst of the fog, and the room snapped back into focus with horrible clarity. I saw Ricosta's frozen smile, I saw the elders exchanging nervous glances, and I saw the dark circles of exhaustion beneath Ansel's eyes. Most of all, I saw the pure, savage anger in the way he squared his shoulders against his own brother.

"The ritual of the North is sacred," Ansel announced, his voice rolling through the room like thunder over a mountain pass. "It requires no sweet smoke, no borrowed incense, and no audience crowding the threshold like carrion crows. I will complete the binding in my own way, and you will wait outside until the door opens again."

"The Council demands proof," Ricosta said carefully. "And tradition insists that a witness remain within earshot."

"Then you may stand in the corridor and listen to every sound." Ansel's lip curled in open contempt. "Though I suspect you have always been good at that."

Silence stretched, taut as a bowstring. At last the eldest of the witnesses, a stooped man with milky eyes, cleared his throat and lifted one trembling hand. "The King may seal the bond privately, provided the fire-mark appears, and the head elder confirms it by dawn."

"Agreed," Ansel said without hesitation.

The elders filed out, dragging Ricosta with them. Before the door closed, my brother-in-law-to-be turned and fixed me with a stare so full of venom that I felt it prickle across my skin. Then the heavy oak slammed shut, the bolt slid home, and I was alone in a firelit chamber with a man I barely knew and a decision I had never wanted to make.

I ripped the wet cloth from my face and drew a ragged breath. The air tasted clean now, tinged only with smoke and frost. "You told me in the car that this was a transaction, and you never mentioned that your family would try to murder me with perfume."

"I did not expect them to move this fast." Ansel crossed the room and stopped a careful arm's length away. He did not touch me, and I noticed that, and I hated how much I noticed. "I have spent my entire life waiting for my brother to strike at me, and I never once considered that he would strike at someone innocent."

"I am not innocent," I said bitterly. "I am a murderer, remember, according to every pack in the South."

"You are a girl who was sold like cattle on her eighteenth birthday." His voice was so low and rough that it felt like a confession. "That is the only thing I have ever believed about you."

The fire popped in the hearth, and a ripple of sparks climbed the chimney. I wrapped my arms around myself and watched the flames, because looking at him was too dangerous. Outside the door, I could hear the faint scrape of boots and the murmur of grey-robed men pressing close to the wood.

"Here is the truth," Ansel said finally. "The Council needs a fire-mark to appear on your skin before dawn, and that mark appears only when two people choose each other with open eyes and a clear mind. The old magic cannot be forced, because it knows the difference between consent and surrender."

"So the whole ritual was designed to catch a lie," I whispered.

"It was designed to catch a coercion." He took one slow step closer. "Which means that if you do not want this, I will walk to that door right now and tell the Council the binding failed. They will call me weak, and my brother will use it to topple me, but I will not take what you have not freely offered."

I stared at him in disbelief. Everything about his reputation told me he was the kind of man who took whatever he pleased, and yet he stood there with open hands, offering me the power to ruin him with a single word. The Cursed King, I realized, was willing to gamble his crown on my honesty.

"You would lose everything," I said hoarsely.

"I would lose a throne." A faint, tired smile touched his mouth. "I have lost far more valuable things and survived."

My heart hammered against my ribs. I thought of Santiago's cold voice in the library, of the ballroom floor beneath my knees, of the bond ripped out of my chest in front of hundreds of staring faces. Every man I had ever trusted with my body had treated it like a possession, and I had promised myself that I would never again let anyone decide my worth.

Then I thought of the balcony, of the strange rogue bleeding in the snow for a girl he claimed to know. For the first time in my life, a handful of people were willing to risk everything to keep me breathing, and I did not want to waste that gift on fear.

"I choose this," I said, and the words felt like stepping off a cliff. "I choose it with my eyes open, and I choose you, Ansel, for reasons I do not fully understand."

His breath caught audibly. For a heartbeat he simply looked at me, and then he reached up with a hand that trembled very slightly and brushed a damp curl from my cheek. When he kissed me, it was nothing like Santiago's furious, claiming crush of lips. It was slow and questioning, a quiet request that I could have refused at any moment.

I did not refuse. The world narrowed to firelight and the warmth of his palm against my jaw, and the hours that followed belonged to us alone. The elders pressing their ears to the door heard only silence, and that silence was the first honest thing either of us had ever shared with another soul.

When I finally surfaced, the fire had burned low, and a thin grey light was seeping through the broken window. Ansel lay beside me with one arm draped across my waist, and he was studying my collarbone with an expression I could not read. I followed his gaze and went rigid.

A mark had risen on my skin, a delicate crescent no wider than my finger, glimmering the pale blue of frost on a winter lake. Unlike the dark brand Santiago's bite would have left, it shimmered and shifted as though it were alive. Ansel's own chest bore an answering mark, but his was a pure white stag's antler, and mine was something else entirely.

"That is not the Northern fire-mark," Ansel said slowly. "I have seen every variant in the temple records, and I have never seen this one."

A sharp rap sounded at the door. "Open in the name of the Council," called the stooped elder, and the hinges groaned as the guards forced the bolt.

Ansel pulled the furs over my shoulders, but not quickly enough. The head elder stepped inside, and his milky eyes landed directly on my collarbone. The color drained from his face so fast that I thought he might faint, and the silver staff in his hand clattered to the floor.

"Great ancestors, preserve us," he whispered. "That is the mark of the Valmora line, and every scroll in our archive swears that bloodline has been dead for two hundred years."