It came from the outer gate. It wasn't a cry of surprise. It was a shriek of absolute primal terror.
Instantly, the courtyard erupted. Declan dropped the traps, his hands flying to the axes at his belt, sprinting toward the sound. From the main keep, Bram threw open the heavy wooden doors, taking the stone steps three at a time.
Gwen didn't think. A training drilled into her through years of blood and broken bones in her father's secret fighting pits took over. She broke into a run, her boots pounding against the frozen mud, keeping pace right behind Declan.
They reached the inner palisade gate just as a boy no older than ten scrambled backward through the mud. Looming over him in the archway was a nightmare.
It was a wolf, but not one of Bram's people. This was a straggler. A rogue. It was monstrously huge, its fur matted with dried blood and filth. One of its eyes was milky blind, the other rolling in mad frenzy. White foam dripped from jaws that looked strong enough to snap a horse's femur. The rabies, or whatever foul blight lived in the deep woods, had driven it entirely insane.
"Hold the line!" Bram roared from behind them, drawing a massive broadsword from his back.
But the rogue wasn't waiting. It lunged — not at the armed men, but at the screaming boy in the mud. Declan swung his axe, but he was too far left. Bram was sprinting, but he was three seconds too late.
Gwen was already moving.
She didn't scream. She didn't hesitate. As she closed the distance, her hands moved in a blur. Her fingers hooked the hem of her skirt, ripping open the hidden leather sheath. In a single fluid motion born of muscle memory and thousands of hours of practice, she drew the silver-cored throwing knife. She planted her lead foot, torqued her hips, and threw.
The blade cut through the freezing air with a sharp hiss. It struck true. The silver knife buried itself to the hilt directly into the rogue wolf's good eye.
The beast let out an unearthly shriek, its forward momentum carrying it over the boy. It crashed into the mud in a tangle of limbs, thrashing wildly.
Before it could recover, Gwen was there. She slid to her knees in the muck, drawing the two skinning daggers from her thighs. The beast snapped its jaws blindly, trying to find her. She ducked under a wild swipe of a massive paw, grabbed the thick fur at the back of its neck, and drove both silver blades upward, directly under the jaw, severing the brain stem.
The monster went instantly, utterly rigid. Then it collapsed in a heap of dead weight.
Silence slammed into the courtyard, thick and suffocating. The only sound was the harsh rasp of Gwen's breathing.
Slowly, she stood up. Her pristine white wool dress was soaked in black, foul-smelling blood. Her hands dripped with it. She wiped her daggers clean on the dead wolf's pelt, her face devoid of emotion, before sliding them smoothly back into their hidden sheaths. She walked over to the beast's head, placed a boot on its snout, and wrenched her throwing knife free with a wet squelch.
She turned around.
Every single member of the pack was staring at her in stunned, horrified silence. Declan was frozen mid-swing, his jaw slack. Bram stood ten feet away. His broadsword was lowered. His gray eyes were locked onto her, but they weren't tired anymore. They were sharp, calculating, wide awake.
He looked at the dead, monstrous beast. Then he looked at the petite, blood-soaked girl from the valley who had just dispatched it in five seconds flat. He realized in that moment that Duke Aldus hadn't sent a fragile peace offering to appease the wolves. He had sent a butcher to slaughter the alpha.
Gwen met Bram's gaze across the muddy, blood-stained yard. She didn't flinch. She just held the silver blade by her side, waiting for the king's next move.
The courtyard remained perfectly still. The wind ripped through the palisade, but nobody moved. They were all staring at the blood soaking into the snow, and then at the girl who had put it there.
Bram broke the silence. He didn't shout. He didn't draw his sword. He just sheathed the heavy broadsword with a metallic scrape that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet yard.
"Declan, burn the carcass. Bury the ashes deep. Don't let the dogs near it." Bram's voice was utterly devoid of panic. He turned his gaze back to Gwen. "You. Inside."
Gwen wiped her hands on a clean patch of her skirt. She walked past the heavily armed werewolves. None of them tried to stop her. They stepped back, giving her a wide berth, their eyes tracking the silver handles jutting from her thighs. They could smell the metal. To them, it smelled like battery acid and old graves.
She followed Bram into the great hall, past the empty tables and up a narrow stone staircase she hadn't seen before. He led her into a small, cramped room that served as a study. It was filled with ledgers, maps pinned to the walls with iron nails, and the heavy scent of beeswax and dried ink.
Bram closed the heavy oak door behind them. He leaned against it, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Four throwing knives, two skinners, a garrote." He rattled off the inventory without missing a beat. "All silver-forged. Your father didn't send a bride. He sent an executioner."
"Yes," Gwen said. There was no point in lying. He had seen her move. He knew what she was.
"Why am I still breathing?"
It was a fair question. Gwen looked at him. He didn't look angry. He looked intensely curious, like a man who had found a live explosive on his desk and was trying to understand the wiring before it went off.
"My father told me you were a monster," Gwen said, keeping her voice level. "He told me you demanded a noble virgin to tear apart for sport, and that killing you was the only way to save the valley."
"And?"
"And monsters don't sleep on cold stone floors to give their prisoners a soft bed," Gwen replied flatly. "Monsters don't look at their ledgers and ration their own grain to feed peasant children in the lower bailey. My father is a liar. He didn't send me here to save the valley. He sent me here to sever the treaty, so he wouldn't have to pay the iron tithe next spring."
Bram rubbed his jaw. He let out a harsh, bitter exhale that might have been a laugh if there was any humor in it.
"Aldus is a cheap bastard. I'll give him that."
He walked over to a heavy wooden desk and poured two cups of water from a clay pitcher. He handed one to her. Gwen took it, sniffing it briefly out of habit before taking a sip.
"If you killed me, my pack would have torn you into bloody ribbons before you reached the outer gate," Bram said, leaning against the desk. "Did he tell you that?"
"No. He told me there would be a horse waiting at the tree line."
"There is no horse."
"I know." Gwen gripped the cup. "I realized that the moment the carriage drove away. I was a disposable asset. A fire-and-forget weapon."
Silence stretched between them. It wasn't the tense, coiled silence of the courtyard. It was heavy, acknowledged. They were two people who understood exactly how little the world valued their lives.
"What now?" Gwen asked. She met his gray eyes. "I am holding enough silver to kill you and half your guard. You are holding a fortress full of wolves. We can do this the hard way, or we can figure something out."
Bram looked at her, truly evaluating her. He saw the way she stood, her weight perfectly balanced on the balls of her feet. He saw the cold, dead calm in her eyes, the look of someone who had long ago made peace with violence.
"That rogue in the yard," Bram said slowly. "It was infected. Rot blood. We haven't seen that sickness this far south in decades. It means the herds in the deep woods are infected, or something is driving the diseased stragglers down from the peaks."
"I know," Gwen said. "I smelled the rot before it hit the gate. It's why I moved."
Bram nodded, coming to a decision. "My people hunt by scent and instinct, but the rot masks the scent. It confuses the pack. We need a tracker. Someone who hunts with their eyes and their head, not just their nose."
"You want me to work for you?"
"I want you to keep my people alive," Bram corrected. "You're not a bride, Gwen. I don't give a damn about the marriage rights. But you are a hunter, and right now the Iron Crag needs a hunter more than it needs a queen."
Gwen set the wooden cup on the desk. She thought of the dark, damp hunting lodge back in the valley. The chains. The isolation. Her father only visiting when he had a target that needed quietly disappearing.
Here the stone was cold, and the people were beasts. But they were honest beasts.
"I need proper leathers," Gwen said. "This dress is ruined. And I need access to the smithy. I want to modify my bolts."
Bram's mouth twitched, a ghost of a smile.
"Done," he said. "Welcome to the pack, valley girl."