Chapter 1: The Healer With No Name

The scent of pine and rain hit Aria like a physical blow.

Seven years. Seven years since she'd last breathed Blackwood air, and it still smelled like home—like wet earth and woodsmoke and something older, wilder, the unmistakable musk of the pack that had cast her out.

*Keep walking,* she told herself. *You're not that girl anymore.*

The border patrol found her before she reached the main gate. Two wolves shifted mid-stride, blocking the dirt road with crossed arms and narrowed eyes. The older one—Marcus, she remembered, older now, gray threading his beard—sniffed the air and frowned.

"State your business."

"I'm the healer." Aria kept her voice level, her gaze steady. She'd rehearsed this. The letter from the Council had been formal, clinical, addressed to the renowned healer who'd trained under the Northern packs. *Aria of no pack.* That was what the letter said. That was what she would be. "The Council summoned me. Your Alpha's daughter is ill."

Marcus's eyes flickered with something—recognition, maybe, or just suspicion. "A human? We requested a wolf healer."

"I'm not human." The lie tasted like copper on her tongue, but it was the truth she'd buried so deep even her wolf had learned to stay silent. "I'm a rogue. Unaffiliated. Your Council knows this."

A rogue. The word hung between them like a challenge. Rogues were dangerous, untrustworthy—every child in Blackwood learned that before they learned to shift. But a rogue healer who'd trained with the Northern packs, who'd cured the Silvermoon Alpha's wasting sickness and saved three litters in the Frostfang territory? Even Blackwood couldn't afford to turn her away.

Not when their Alpha's daughter was dying.

Marcus grunted and jerked his head toward the gate. "Follow the main road. Someone will escort you to the pack house."

Aria nodded and stepped past him. She felt his gaze on her back, tracking her like prey, and forced her shoulders to stay loose. *You're not that girl,* she reminded herself again. *You're not the girl they threw out.*

But the moment she crossed the border, her wolf stirred for the first time in seven years.

*Home,* the beast whispered, and Aria's heart cracked along old fault lines.

The pack house hadn't changed. Same gray stone, same sprawling wings, same red door that had slammed shut behind her when she was seventeen and bleeding and begging them to believe her.

*Stop it.*

A servant led her to a guest room on the second floor—small, clean, with a window that overlooked the training grounds. Aria set down her bag and pressed her palm against the cold glass. Below, wolves sparred in the dying afternoon light. She recognized none of them. Of course she didn't. Seven years was a lifetime in a pack.

"You're the healer."

The voice came from the doorway. Aria turned.

The woman was beautiful in a sharp, brittle way—black hair pulled back, gray eyes the color of storm clouds. She leaned against the doorframe with calculated casualness, but her scent betrayed her: power, old and deep, and something else. Something that made Aria's wolf bare its teeth.

"I am."

"I'm Selene." The woman smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "The Alpha's daughter."

*The Alpha's daughter.* Aria kept her expression neutral. "I was told you were ill."

"I am." Selene pushed off the doorframe and circled the room, trailing her fingers along the dresser, the windowsill, the bedpost. "The best healers in three territories couldn't help me. So tell me, rogue—what makes you think you can?"

Aria met her gaze. "I don't think. I know."

Selene laughed. It was a cold, silver sound. "Confident. I like that." She stopped in front of Aria, close enough that her scent filled the space between them—and there it was again, that wrongness, like honey laced with poison. "But I should warn you. This pack doesn't trust outsiders. And they especially don't trust rogues."

"Noted."

"Good." Selene smiled again and headed for the door. "Rest well, healer. Tomorrow, you'll begin. And remember—" She paused in the doorway, glancing back. "In Blackwood, secrets have a way of coming out. No matter how deep you bury them."

She left.

Aria stood frozen for a long moment, then exhaled shakily and closed the door. Her hands were trembling. *Stupid. Stupid to come back here.*

She pulled out her phone.

One message. Just one, sent three hours ago.

**Liam:** *Are you there yet?*

Aria stared at the screen. Her mate's name glowed in the dim room, and for a moment, she let herself feel it—the bond, the warmth, the steady pulse of him somewhere far away, waiting for her.

*I'm here,* she typed. *It's worse than I thought.*

Three dots appeared. Then:

**Liam:** *Come home. We'll find another way.*

Aria closed her eyes. She could see him—Liam, with his quiet strength and his gentle hands, the rogue who'd found her bleeding in the snow seven years ago and carried her to safety. The rogue who'd claimed her, marked her, loved her when she had nothing left to give.

*I can't,* she typed. *You know I can't.*

The reply took longer this time.

**Liam:** *Then be careful. And Aria—*

**Liam:** *Don't let them see your wolf. No matter what.*

Aria's throat tightened. She touched the scar on her neck—the one that should have been a mating mark, the one she'd carved away with her own claws the night she'd fled Blackwood. The one that still ached when the moon was full.

*I won't,* she typed.

She didn't tell him about Selene. She didn't tell him about the wrongness in the Alpha's daughter's scent, or the way her wolf had growled at the sight of her, or the warning that had felt less like advice and more like a threat.

She didn't tell him because she didn't want him to worry.

She didn't tell him because she was afraid.

A knock sounded at the door.

Aria's head snapped up. She shoved the phone under the pillow and crossed to the door, her heart hammering. *It's just a servant. It's just—*

She opened the door.

The world stopped.

He stood there in the hallway, older and harder, his dark hair streaked with gray at the temples, his golden eyes fixed on her face with an expression she couldn't read. He smelled like power and pine and something achingly familiar.

The Alpha. The man who had thrown her out. The man who had called her a liar, a traitor, a whore.

Her father.

"Aria," he said, and his voice cracked on her name. "You came back."

The door swung shut behind her, sealing her in.

And somewhere deep in her chest, her wolf howled.