Chapter 1

The wolves of Silver Ridge bond once in a life.

Whoever they pass their blood-heat to, they live on that one person until they die.

So when Cael came to ask me to be his mate, I said yes before he finished asking.

I had not expected the wedding night. He saw the bite on my shoulder, and his face turned on the spot.

For three years after that, every full moon, he pressed me. Who was the wolf that bit you.

"You keep another wolf in your heart, and you sleep in my bed. Willa. You ruined me."

I felt wronged.

That year in the wood, he was the one who clung to me. He begged me to save him. He said that when the wound healed he would come and ask, and that I had better say yes.

Why wouldn't he admit it now?

Until today. Cael's twin, exiled for twelve years, came back to Silver Ridge. He and Cael were the same face.

Then I understood.

He had not been wrong to curse me.

He had only cursed the wrong man.

The wolves of Silver Ridge had a flaw the whole continent knew.

Their blood ran too hot. The beast in them sat too heavy. Once they were grown, every full moon brought the bond-thirst.

When it hit, the fever would not break. Their organs burned. They crashed through the trees and could tear their own claws to shreds.

There was one cure. The bond.

On the full moon, a grown wolf chose one person, bit their shoulder, and passed his blood-heat in. Once the bond took, two lives were tied. From then on, only that one person could ease his thirst.

Touch anyone else, and it did not ease. It felt like needles.

If the one who held the bond ran, or died, he could only burn, and keep burning, until the oil was gone and the lamp went out.

So the wolves of Silver Ridge kept themselves clean. They chose a mate more carefully than they chose the next wolf king.

I was the wife Cael, alpha of Silver Ridge, had picked with all that care.

The day he came to ask me to be his mate, every girl in Graywater turned out to watch. Even my mother, who spent every day calling me a fool for picking herbs, said I had walked into the greatest luck of my life.

The gifts filled eighteen carts. At the front was a whole snow-fox pelt. People said the alpha had hunted it himself.

My mother wiped her eyes and pinched me. "Go on. What have you got that matches a man like that?"

"I saved a life."

"Whose?"

"His."

My mother thought I was talking nonsense. She didn't ask again.

I thought the same thing. I had walked into a great piece of luck.

Cael Silvermane was beautiful, and he was the wolf king of Silver Ridge. What mattered was that he kept his word. Four years ago, in the wood, he had said that when the wound healed he would come and ask me to be his mate, and that I had better say yes.

He came.

I had not expected what the wedding night did. He had me against the door, kissing me, and then his face changed.

He had just bitten his bond into my right shoulder. The blood-heat of a new bond was still burning between us. His mouth went from my ear down the side of my neck. His palm locked on my waist, hot enough that I didn't dare move.

"Cael..."

"Mm." He answered into my skin. A canine grazed the hollow of my shoulder. "Don't move. The bite isn't finished."

A wolf's bond takes two bites. One passes the blood-heat. One leaves the mark.

He bit lightly, as if he was afraid of hurting me, and then he couldn't help biting deep.

Then his fingers pulled the collar open on my other side.

All of him went still.

There was an old scar on my left shoulder. Two rows of teeth, darker than the skin around them.

"What is this?"

I blinked.

"You bit me."

"I bit you?"

"Four years ago. The silver-fir wood. The night of the storm." I reminded him. "A silver bolt went through your leg. You crawled into my herb shed and begged me to save you. You said if you didn't bond, you would die. If we bonded, you would be mine for life."

The color left Cael's face an inch at a time.

"You. What did you just say."

"You also said that when the wound healed, you would come and ask me to be your mate, and that I had better say yes." I looked at him and grinned. "Well. I said yes."

He got up hard and shoved me aside, like something had burned him.

"Four years ago? The silver-fir wood?" He stared. "That night I was on the north slope, leading the hunt. Thirty-odd wolves can swear to it."

This time I was the one who went stupid.

"But that face..."

"I have never been to any herb shed. And I have never bitten you."

His eyes were red. He pointed at my shoulder. His voice cracked in half.

"I kept that bond clean for twenty-six years. I never gave it to anyone. And I gave it to a woman with another wolf's teeth already in her shoulder."

"Cael, listen to me—"

"Don't touch me."

On our wedding night, he walked out and slammed the door.

I sat on the marriage bed alone. Half the night, and I still couldn't make it make sense.

It had been him. The brows were his. The eyes were his. The way his voice cracked when he got urgent. That was his too.

Why wouldn't he own it?

The next full moon, he came back on his own.

In the middle of the night he climbed through the window, his clothes barely on, and dropped to his knees beside the bed.

"Willa. Save me."

He knelt there, forehead against the edge of the bed. A choked sound rolled in his throat.

"Please."

I sighed.

I have never been any good against a man on his knees. Hard words, I can refuse. This, I can't.

So I saved him.