Chapter 1: The Wrong Scent

The first thing Aria smelled was blood.

Not the clean, coppery scent of a rabbit caught for supper, or the sharp tang of a wolf’s scraped paw. No—this was old blood. Layer upon layer of it, soaked into wood and stone until the very air tasted of rust. Her wolf stirred uneasily beneath her skin, hackles rising, a low whine building in her chest.

*Run,* the instinct whispered. *Run now.*

She should have listened.

Aria had been gathering moonroot along the eastern edge of Silver Creek territory, her basket half-full, her bare feet sinking into the damp moss. The night was quiet. Too quiet, she realized now. No crickets. No owls. Just silence, thick and waiting.

Then the wind shifted. A scent curled toward her—pine smoke and leather and something darker underneath, something cold. Alpha blood. Powerful. Wrong.

She spun, but it was already too late.

They came out of the trees like shadows given teeth. Six of them. Maybe seven. She only counted the first two before her wolf surged forward, snapping, and the world became snarls and tearing claws.

Aria fought. Goddess, she fought. She drove her elbow into one wolf’s throat, felt his windpipe crunch. She shifted mid-leap, her grey wolf tearing into another’s flank, hot blood spraying across her muzzle. For one wild heartbeat, she thought she might break free.

Then teeth clamped down on her hind leg.

She howled—a raw, splitting sound—and the weight of three wolves crashed onto her. Claws raked her ribs. A muzzle forced her head to the ground. She thrashed, but they held her, and the cold scent of Alpha blood flooded her nose until she was drowning in it.

“Enough.”

The voice cut through the chaos like a blade. Deep. Commanding. Every wolf around her went still, ears flattening, tails dropping in instant submission.

A man stepped through the bracken. Tall. Broad-shouldered, with hair as black as a starless night and eyes the colour of frozen slate. He wore no shirt despite the chill, and the scars crisscrossing his chest told a story Aria didn’t want to read. His gaze swept over her, dispassionate, like she was a rabbit hung on a hook.

“This is her?” he asked.

One of the wolves shifted—a woman with a shaved head and a jagged scar through her lip. “Silver Creek’s healer. Confirmed.”

The man crouched before Aria. His scent hit her fully then—Blackwood. Alpha of the Blackwood pack. The Butcher of the Northern Territory. Every wolf in three hundred miles had heard the stories. The pack that razed the Rookwood village to ash. The Alpha who killed his own father to take the throne.

Kade Blackwood.

He studied her bleeding, heaving form with the cold curiosity of a butcher deciding where to make the first cut. “You’re smaller than I expected.”

Aria bared her teeth, a growl rumbling from her torn throat. She would not cower. She would *not*.

His mouth curved. Not a smile—something sharper. Then he rose and said, “Take her.”

She didn’t make it easy. She snapped at every hand that reached for her, clawed at every leg. But they pinned her down and bound her muzzle with leather straps, and when she tried to shift back to human, a hand pressed between her shoulder blades and a voice murmured, “Try it and we’ll break your legs. He wants you alive. He didn’t say unbroken.”

Aria went still.

They dragged her through the forest for hours. Branches whipped her face. Stones cut her paws. Every step sent fire up her wounded leg, but she refused to limp, refused to give them the satisfaction. Her captors spoke in low voices, too quiet for even wolf hearing to catch. Twice she caught the name *Kade* and something about the northern border. Something about a war.

They reached Blackwood territory just before dawn. The pack’s village sprawled across a valley like a wound—dark timber halls, sharp palisades, smoke rising from a dozen fires. Every wolf they passed stopped to stare. Children were pulled inside. Mothers turned their faces away. But Aria saw the hunger in their eyes. The desperation. These were not the sleek, well-fed wolves of Silver Creek. These wolves were thin. Scarred. Haunted.

*What have you done to your people, Kade Blackwood?*

They didn’t take her to a cell. They took her to the centre of the village, to a pit ringed with iron bars. A cage. A literal cage, barely big enough for a wolf to stand. They unchained her muzzle, shoved her inside, and slammed the door shut with a clang that echoed through her bones.

Aria shifted back to human, her naked skin pressing against cold iron. She wrapped her arms around her knees, trying to hold herself together. Her leg was a mess—deep punctures, torn muscle. She could feel the infection beginning to bloom, hot and wrong.

*Heal yourself,* her wolf urged. *Now, while no one is watching.*

But she was so tired. So cold. And the bars felt like they were closing in, pressing the air from her lungs.

Footsteps approached. Kade Blackwood emerged from the largest hall, a fur cloak thrown over his shoulders, two wolves flanking him. He stopped before her cage and looked down at her like she was something scraped off his boot.

“The Silver Creek healer,” he said. “They say you can mend anything. Broken bones. Poison. Wolfsbane wounds. Is it true?”

Aria lifted her chin. “Untie me and I’ll show you.”

His laugh was a low, empty sound. “I have a dozen wolves bleeding out in my infirmary. Rogue attacks. My own healer died three days ago.” He leaned closer, and she caught the scent of ash and something else—grief, buried deep. “You will heal them. Every one. And if even a single wolf dies…”

He reached through the bars and caught her chin, his grip bruising. His slate eyes burned into hers, cold and relentless.

“…I will make you watch while I tear your pack apart. Limb from limb. Starting with the little sister you left sleeping in your den tonight.”

Every drop of blood in Aria’s body turned to ice.

*Cora.* Her baby sister. Sixteen years old. Sleeping in Aria’s own bed because she got scared of the dark, even now.

“How do you know about her?” The words scraped out of her throat.

Kade released her chin and straightened, his expression unreadable. “I know everything that happens in Silver Creek. I knew you’d be gathering moonroot tonight. I knew exactly where to put my wolves.” He turned his back and started walking. “Heal my pack, little healer. Or I’ll bring you your sister’s head.”

The gate slammed shut behind him.

Aria sat in the dark, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might crack her ribs. Cora. Cora, with her messy braids and her fear of thunderstorms and her laugh that sounded like bells. The only family Aria had left.

She pressed her forehead to the cold iron bars and closed her eyes.

*Think,* she told herself. *Think. There has to be a way out.*

But as the hours crawled by and the screams of the wounded rose from the infirmary, Aria knew only one thing for certain. Kade Blackwood had not just captured her.

He had caged her with the one thing she could never refuse.

And as the first grey light of dawn crept across the valley, a wolf howled in the distance—long and mournful and terribly familiar. Aria’s eyes flew open.

That was Cora’s howl.

Coming from the forest.

Coming closer.