The deep winter did not arrive with a whisper. It hit Highridge like a battering ram. For four weeks, the sun was nothing but a pale smudge behind thick iron-grey clouds. Snow drifted as high as the armoury windows, sealing the fortress in a cocoon of ice and howling wind.
Inside, the keep ran like a well-oiled machine. Emily's rationing meant there was hot stew twice a day. The fires never died, and the men had dry boots. But the wilderness outside the walls was unforgiving, and the pack still had to patrol its borders.
It was a Tuesday evening when the horn blew. It was a single, long, jagged note that cut through the noise of the great hall.
Emily dropped her quill. The hall fell deathly silent. That was not the horn for returning hunters. It was the distress call.
She ran. She pushed through the heavy wooden doors, her woollen skirts dragging in the fresh snow as she hit the courtyard. A dozen men were already there, holding torches that hissed and spat in the wind.
Through the heavy iron gates came three horses. Kael was leading them. He looked exhausted, his face covered in frost and dried blood. Across the saddle of the massive black destrier in the centre lay Gareth. He was unconscious.
"Get him inside," Kael roared, his voice cracking. "Move, you dogs."
Vane sprinted forward, his massive arms wrapping around Gareth's torso, hauling the alpha off the horse. Gareth's head lolled back. His armour was gone, his tunic torn to shreds. His right side was a mangled mess of torn flesh and dark, sluggishly flowing blood.
Emily's stomach plummeted, but her mind snapped into cold, sharp focus. Panic was a luxury for the unprepared.
"Bring him to our chamber. Not the healing ward, it's too cold," Emily ordered, her voice cutting through the shouting. "Elias, fetch the healer. Tell him to bring willow bark, needle and gut. You, boy." She pointed at a terrified stable hand. "Run to the kitchens. I want three kettles of boiling water and clean linen. Now."
They carried him up the winding stairs. Gareth was heavy, a dead weight of dense muscle and bone, and it took Vane, Torin and Kael to hoist him onto the heavy oak bed.
"What happened?" Emily demanded. She was already stripping her heavy shawl off, tossing it to the floor, and rolling up her sleeves.
"Poachers," Kael spat, pacing at the foot of the bed. His eyes were flashing between human brown and wolf yellow. "Southern scum. They set traps in the black pines. Bear traps. But they weren't iron, my lady. They were lined with silver."
Emily inhaled sharply. Silver didn't just cut a werewolf. It burned them from the inside out. It halted their rapid healing. It was poison.
The healer, a frail, nervous man named Corin, rushed into the room carrying a leather satchel. He took one look at the gaping, blackened wound on Gareth's ribs and paled. His hands began to shake violently.
"The silver, it's still in there," Corin stammered, dropping his satchel on the table. "Shards of it. The trap shattered when he ripped it open. I—I cannot dig it out. My hands—"
"If you don't get it out, the rot will reach his heart by morning," Vane growled, grabbing the old man by the collar.
"Let him go, Vane," Emily snapped.
She stepped up to the table, opened the satchel, and pulled out a pair of long iron tongs and a small, sharp scalpel. She poured a splash of clear, brutal grain alcohol over the tools. She turned back to the bed. Gareth was deathly pale, sweat pooling in the hollows of his collarbones. His breathing was shallow and ragged.
Emily climbed onto the mattress, kneeling beside his immense frame. "Hold him down," she ordered the three warriors.
"My lady, you cannot—" Kael started.
"Hold him down," Emily shouted.
It was the loudest she had ever spoken in Highridge.
"When the knife hits the silver, he will shift. He will thrash. If he moves, I will sever an artery and he will bleed out on these sheets. Pin his shoulders and his legs. Now."
The men obeyed. Vane took the shoulders, his massive weight pressing the alpha into the mattress. Kael and Torin took a leg each.
Emily took a breath, steadying her hands. They did not shake. She pressed the scalpel into the blackened, ruined flesh of Gareth's side.
Gareth's eyes flew open. They were not human. They were blazing, feral, predatory gold. A roar ripped from his throat, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony that rattled the window panes. His body bucked with terrifying force, nearly throwing the three massive wolves off him.
"Hold him," Emily yelled.
She didn't look at his terrifying face. She looked at the wound. She dug. Blood coated her fingers, hot and slick. The smell of burning flesh and copper filled the room. She found the first shard of silver deep in the muscle. She gripped it with the tongs and pulled it out, dropping the bloody metal into a tin basin with a sharp clink.
"One," she muttered. She went back in.
It took an hour. An hour of Gareth thrashing, growling and bleeding. Emily found four more shards of silver. By the time she pulled the last one out, she was covered in his blood up to her elbows, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. Gareth had passed out again, his body going limp against the furs.
"Sew him up, Corin," Emily said, stepping off the bed.
Her legs felt like water, but she locked her knees. She walked to the wash basin and plunged her bloody hands into the cold water.
She stayed awake for three days.
The fever hit Gareth an hour after the surgery. He burned with an unnatural heat, thrashing in the heavy furs, muttering in a language Emily didn't understand. She sat in the wooden chair beside the bed, forcing water between his cracked lips, placing cold, wet cloths on his forehead, and wiping the sweat from his chest.
Vane came in on the second night. He stood awkwardly by the door, holding a bowl of broth.
"You should sleep, my lady," he rumbled gently. "He is strong. The alpha's blood fights the poison. If he dies—"
"If he dies, Vane, Master Hewitt will hear of it by spring," Emily said, not taking her eyes off Gareth's face. She rewet the cloth in a basin of snowmelt. "And he will march a mercenary army up that pass to take his gold back. I am not letting this man die. We have too much paperwork to finish."
Vane chuckled softly. It was a sad, heavy sound. "You have a cold mouth, Lady Emily. But a very fierce heart."
He left the broth on the table and walked out.
On the evening of the third day, the wind outside finally died down to a low moan. The room was quiet, save for the crackle of the hearth. Emily was dozing in the chair, her head resting on the edge of the mattress, her hand lightly resting over Gareth's forearm.
She felt the shift in his breathing first. It deepened, evening out. The brutal radiating heat of his fever broke, replaced by his normal, furnace-like warmth. A heavy, rough hand turned over and loosely gripped her fingers.
Emily's eyes snapped open. She sat up.
Gareth was awake. He looked battered, his face gaunt under his thick beard, but his eyes were clear. They were human again, a pale, striking amber in the firelight. He looked down at their joined hands, then up at her face. He saw the dark circles under her eyes, the wrinkled, bloodstained dress she hadn't changed out of, and the basin of murky water beside her.
"You stayed." His voice was a ruined croak, dry as parchment.
Emily reached for the cup of water on the nightstand, supporting the back of his neck as she tipped the water into his mouth. He drank greedily.
"Of course I stayed," Emily said, setting the cup down. Her voice was steady, but her throat felt tight. "You are a terrible steward of your own keep. If I left you to Corin, you would have bled to death, and I refuse to manage this pack alone."
Gareth let his head fall back against the pillows. He let out a long, exhausted breath. He didn't let go of her hand. His thumb weakly stroked the ink-stained calluses on her knuckles.
"They told me," Gareth murmured, "in the haze. Vane said you dug the silver out yourself. That you ordered them around like dogs."
"They were acting like dogs. Someone had to."
A faint smile touched Gareth's cracked lips. He turned his head on the pillow, looking at her with an intensity that made Emily's breath hitch. There was no arrogance in his gaze, no predatory edge, just a deep, anchoring reverence.
"I was prepared to be a warden," Gareth said softly. "A jailer to a southern lord's terrified daughter. That is what the treaty demanded."
"I am not terrified," Emily said.
"I know." Gareth's grip on her hand tightened slightly. "You are my queen in blood, not just in ink."
He closed his eyes, his breathing returning to the steady rhythm of sleep.
Emily sat in the chair, looking down at their joined hands. For the first time since she arrived at Highridge, she let a single tear slip down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away.