Elena woke to the taste of iron and the scrape of stone against her cheek.
The cell smelled of piss and wet rot. Her wrists burned where the silver cuffs had rubbed raw.
She pushed herself up on one elbow and stared at her hands. Blood had dried black between her fingers and under her nails. Lila's blood.
Her sister had laughed at the feast the night before, wine glass raised high, cheeks flushed from the dancing.
Elena remembered the exact moment Lila's eyes went wide. The exact second the cup slipped from her fingers and shattered on the packed dirt floor. Then screams. Then the pack closing in.
A boot kicked the bars. Elena flinched before she could stop herself.
Her father stood outside the cell, arms crossed, face carved from the same stone as the walls.
Gamma Voss.
The man who used to carry her on his shoulders when she was small enough to fit there.
"You killed her!," he said. Flat. No shake in his voice.
"I didn't, I could never do that to my sister believe me dad!" Elena's throat felt like it had been scoured with sand. "I handed her the cup. That's all. Someone else—"
"Save it for the council." He spat on the floor between the bars. "They already decided. You're done, Elena. Pack doesn't carry traitors."
She laughed once, a cracked sound that hurt coming out. "Traitors? I spent my whole life cleaning up after your mistakes.
Who covered for you when you lost the border patrol last spring? Who lied to the alpha when you came home smelling of human whiskey and cheaper women?"
His hand shot through the bars faster than she expected. Fingers locked around her jaw, squeezing until her teeth cut the inside of her cheek.
"You were always too sharp for your own good. That's why they picked you. Easy scapegoat. Human blood in your veins, weak wolf scent. No one will miss you when you're gone."
He let go. Elena stayed on her knees, breathing through her nose so she wouldn't cry in front of him.
She tasted blood again, fresh this time.
Good thing. It kept her angry.
Hours bled past. The guards came at dusk with chains. They didn't bother being gentle. One of them, Marek, the same bastard who used to leer at her during training, yanked her arms behind her back and clicked the manacles tight. The silver bit deep. Her skin hissed.
"North," Marek grunted. "Blackthorn brothers. They'll rip you apart before the week's out. Feral fucks. Whole territory's cursed."
Elena didn't answer. She let them drag her through the corridors, past the feast hall still stinking of spilled wine and death. Past the spot where Lila had fallen. The blood had been scrubbed but the stain remained, darker than the rest of the floor.
She stared at it until the guards shoved her forward again.
Outside, snow had started falling. Thick flakes caught in her lashes. The transport wagon waited, iron bars on the sides, no roof. Two horses stamped and blew steam.
Elena climbed in without being told. Her bare feet went numb on the frozen planks.
The wagon rolled out of Shadowpine under a low gray sky. Elena sat with her back to the driver, knees drawn up, arms aching from the angle of the chains.
She watched the pine trees slide past and tried to remember the last time anyone in the pack had looked at her like she mattered. Her mother had died giving birth to Lila. Father had never forgiven either of them for it.
The rest of the pack followed his lead. "Human-tainted," they called her behind her back. "Useful for chores, useless for anything that counted."
She closed her eyes and let the wagon's jolts rock through her. The bond she didn't know existed yet hummed somewhere deep in her chest, faint as a half-heard howl. North. Something waited there. Something that would either end her or remake her.
By the time they reached the first ridge the snow had turned to sleet. Marek rode beside the wagon on a black gelding, cloak pulled tight. He kept glancing at her like he was deciding whether to stop and take what he wanted before the North got its turn.
"You know what they say about the Blackthorns?" he called over the wind. "Their wolves don't shift back anymore. They just stay half-mad, knotting anything that moves until it breaks."
Elena lifted her head. Rain ran down her face like tears she refused to shed. "Then they'll have to kill me quick. I don't break easy."
Marek laughed. The sound died fast in the sleet.
She didn't know it yet, but three pairs of eyes already tracked the wagon from the ridges above.
Darius, Kane, and Rylan had felt the pull the moment the chains first closed around her wrists two hundred miles south. Their wolves paced inside their ribs, snarling for the mate the curse had finally delivered.
The wagon kept rolling north. Elena kept her eyes on the darkening trees and told herself she would survive whatever came next. She had no idea she was riding straight into the only place that would ever feel like home again.
The first howl split the night an hour later. Low, ragged, three voices braided together.
Elena's heart slammed against her ribs.
The sound wasn't threat. It was recognition.
She didn't know whether to smile or scream.