Chapter 2 Wolf Bride
Moonlight clung to Alyssa's silver neckpiece like spider silk, choking her. The betrothal necklace—her father called it the pride of a Shadowclaw heiress—felt more like a hangman's noose. She kicked aside night-blooming roses, cursing the decision to hold the family feast in this haunted hunting ground.
"My lady, watch out!" Guards' warnings drowned in wolf howls. When the ice wolf pack breached the wards, Alyssa was hiding a dinner knife in her petticoat—gods knew if her father would force her to dance the mating waltz with the Silverfang heir. Putrid wind grazed her ear as someone yanked her into brambles.
"Stay still." A stranger's voice carried elderflower notes. "They track fear-sweat." Her dagger pressed against his throat, but she froze when moonlight revealed his face. Poet's pale fingers, minstrel's linen shirt, but those gray-green eyes... Had his pupils just flashed crimson?
"Layne." He showed scorch scars rolling up his sleeves. "An unlucky herb merchant." Bullshit. Alyssa eyed the starmetal dagger at his belt—no human used mithril. As wolves sniffed ten yards away, Layne crushed rotten acorns, the pungent odor masking their scent.
"Blue roses? Now?" She eyed the eerie bouquet he offered hours later, dew glinting lead-gray on petals. "They turn silver under the blood moon." His fingers brushed her pulse. "Like your eyes."
Her guardian wolf whimpered. When she turned, the snow-coated beast was foaming at the mouth, petals glued to its tongue. "Excuse me." She fled to the stables, missing the man licking purple venom from his fingertips.
Midnight bells heralded the first Moonflare awakening. Alyssa stared at the fledgling-shaped flame in her palm as she tended wounds before the bathroom mirror. "Bloody hell!" She knocked over a silver candlestick, flames blazing cyan upon touching metal.
Downstairs, Layne played a lute for her father, lyrics sounding romantic until Alyssa translated them backward in Old Wolf tongue: "...bound by silver and blood vows..." The music stopped abruptly. Layne's finger bled from a snapped string, healing flawless in three seconds.
"Do you believe in fate?" Layne draped a cloak over her post-feast, silver clasp pricking her nape. Alyssa watched their reflection in the carriage window. "I only believe in fangs that can rip fate's throat out." He didn't see her secretly storing neck blood in a crystal vial—the wolf bride's first blood, sweetest offering.