Chapter 2

A girl stood in the doorway with a gloved hand over her nose.

Blond braid. White fur. Big, wet eyes.

She was pressed against the man beside her, and she was wearing his coat.

I could smell it from across the room. Pine smoke and Alpha, soaked deep into the wool. That coat had been hers for years.

I looked up at the man.

Tall. Broad. A pale scar ran from his temple down to his jaw. Snow on his shoulders, and a face like stone.

Dane Halvorsen. The Tyrant of the North.

He didn't say a word to me. His eyes went distant for a second, and both sentries snapped straight.

Mind-link. He was giving orders, and I couldn't hear any of it.

I wasn't pack. To him, I might as well have been part of the bench.

Fine.

I stood up and pulled the pact scroll from my jacket.

"Dane Halvorsen? I'm Jessamine Calder. Your mate." I pushed the scroll against his chest. "The blood seal's at the bottom. Check it, then find me a bed and a hot shower."

He broke the wax and lifted the seal to his nose. Our grandfathers' blood.

Then he leaned in close to my neck and breathed in.

Checking that the blood matched the wolf.

I smelled like rogue and gasoline. He still took his time.

"Dane." The girl tugged his sleeve. "She smells like a dead animal. Does she not like me?"

I'd been robbed, frozen, and called a rogue twice today. My temper snapped.

"Like you? I don't even know you."

I turned to Dane. "And you. Are you going to let me into your territory, or do I sit at your border until spring?"

No outsider crosses into a pack's land without the Alpha's word.

The girl smiled a little. She was waiting for him to send me away.

Dane looked at me for a long second.

"Granted."

That was all. One word.

He picked up my bag and walked out. He didn't explain the girl in his coat.

No wonder Juliet suffered here.

A girl who could cry on command. A man who would rather mind-link a wall than talk to his own mate.

And my sister had been too gentle to fight either of them.

But I wasn't Juliet.

If I was happy, everyone could be happy. If I wasn't, I wasn't going to suffer alone.

...

The elders had already approved the pact. The mating rite was set for the full moon, two nights later.

Dane's parents were dead.

By custom, my family should have walked me into the moon circle. Instead, a group of the pack's she-wolves did it. They had decided I was theirs to take care of.

The whole pack stood in a ring in the snow.

At the end of the rite, Dane would say my name, and the pack would howl.

That howl meant they accepted me.

It never came.

"Jessa is so lucky."

The soft voice came from the edge of the circle.

Lacey Hart. The fallen warrior's daughter. Still in his coat.

"An old promise, and she gets Dane." Her voice shook. "Some of us only get to borrow his coat."

Then her sadness spread through the pack bond.

I couldn't feel it. I wasn't pack yet.

But I saw it hit them. Every wolf in the ring flinched at the same time. The she-wolves who had walked me in turned and looked at me like I had done something wrong.

So that was her trick.

She didn't need to blame me. She only had to hurt loud enough for everyone to feel it.

Last life, Juliet would have stepped back and let the moon set with no howl at all.

I stepped forward.

I grabbed Dane's jaw, rose on my toes, and dragged my cheek slowly down the side of his throat.

Scenting him. In front of everyone.

When I pulled back, my scent covered hers on his skin.

Then I smiled at Lacey.

"You're right. I am lucky. He runs a whole pack. He has that face. And the rest of him..." I let my eyes drop down his body. "It takes a lot of luck to handle a wolf like this. Anyone else might break."

I slid my hand under his coat and let my claws dig into his side.

"Right, Dane?"

His face didn't change.

But his eyes flashed gold, and a low rumble rolled out of his chest. Every wolf in the ring heard it.

Somebody in the back choked on their drink.

Lacey's eyes filled with tears. She looked at him, not at me.

"I only came to bless you both. If she doesn't want me here, I'll leave." A tear slid down her cheek. "But tomorrow is my birthday. You'll still run with me, won't you? You've run with me every birthday since my first shift."

A run.

Two wolves alone under the moon. That was something mates did.

Dane nodded. "I'll be at your door before moonrise."

He said it in the middle of our mating rite. With my scent still on his throat.

Last life, my sister's fifty years of silence started with that same promise.

My hand moved before I could think.

I grabbed his wrist, turned my hip, and threw the Tyrant of the North flat on his back in the middle of his own moon circle.