Knotting His Rejected Breeder

Ramon turned his back on them and headed toward his mount. "We’re going home, Sonia."

Dane didn’t watch them leave. He turned toward the broken pine branches. Marcus’ heavy hand slammed violently against the wooden side of the cart.

Dane turned to watch as Marcus hauled himself painfully to his feet; his face was ashen, blood drying in the gray beard covering his jaw. Beside him, Destiny’s mother slipped her arm under the man’s uninjured shoulder, her own clothes soaked with mud. She said nothing when their eyes met.

Dane took a good look at everyone, it seemed all their injuries were healed.

"You planning to head into those woods alone, boy?" Marcus asked in a rasping voice, thick with phlegm and blood.

Dane wondered briefly if that was a question, looking at the old man’s trembling legs and his wife’s haggard, desperate gaze. "You can barely stand, Marcus. You’ll only slow us down."

"She’s my flesh and blood," Marcus spat, wiping his mouth with the back of his raw, scraped hand. "You noble wolves brought this scourge to my doorstep. I was capable of protecting Destiny myself. I’m not going to sit by the roadside waiting for some Alpha’s son to decide he’s done playing the hero."

Henrik looked at Dane, then at the old man’s spear. "He won’t survive the night in weather like this, Dane."

"Neither of them will survive."

"Then I’ll die in the thicket," Marcus declared, taking a staggering step as his boot sank deep into the ruts. Destiny’s mother moved forward with him, supporting his weight, her gaze fixed on Dane in a silent, unyielding challenge.

"Get out of my way."

Dane glanced at the dark edge of the forest, then at the old man. He did not argue.

"Follow close behind me," Dane said.

Pine needles muffled the sound of their boots the moment they crossed the tree line. Behind them, voices from the road faded into the low roar of the wind rushing through the valley, until nothing remained but the snapping of dry twigs beneath their feet.

Dane led the way, his eyes fixed on the trampled ferns where Garron’s men had dragged Destiny toward the woods. Henrik followed a step behind.

Hannah brought up the rear, leading her mount by the reins until the undergrowth grew too dense; she then had to remove the saddlebags and slap the mare’s flank to send her back home. Between the wolves, Marcus and his wife limped forward. Every few steps, Marcus’s breath would catch, but Destiny’s mother never let him stumble, pulling him through the brush with a quiet, feverish strength that secretly made Dane wonder if Destiny would do the same beside him.

Dane shook his head at the thought to clear it.

For an hour, no one spoke. The silence was heavy, broken only by the sound of their ragged breathing, the distant croak of a crow, and the heavy dragging of Marcus’s boots.

Hannah cleared her throat beside Dane. "You know she’s going to marry Seth Fenris now."

Dane didn’t slow down. "Who?"

"Aurora," Hannah said simply. Her voice was flat, devoid of anger, yet heavy with the weight of what they’d left behind in Silvercrest. "Vance isn’t going to wait. He’ll hand her over to Seth, Silverpaw will take the high pass, and our father will sit in the Bloodmoon hall counting empty grain sacks."

"Let Seth have her," Dane grumbled, ducking under a low-hanging spruce branch. "She looked at every Alpha in that room like they were bugs on her plate."

"Yes, but then she looked at you," Hannah retorted, matching his stride. "She was offering you a way out, Dane. You could have had five hundred wolves to defend our border. You could have put a ring on her finger and forced Vance to pledge allegiance to us for once. Instead, you’re out here tracking twelve rabid dogs through the brush for a girl who doesn’t even have a last name."

"She has a family," Marcus rasped from behind them, leaning heavily on his wife and wiped the cold sweat from his brow. "And my daughter wouldn’t be on a sacrificial altar if your arrogant House hadn’t snatched her from the valley to play politics with Vance. Don’t for a second think I’ll thank you for being here."

Dane paused and turned his head just enough to meet the old man’s bloodshot gaze. "I don’t expect your thanks, Marcus."

"Good," Marcus spat. "Because you won’t get them."

Hannah studied Dane for a long moment, her lips pursed. She didn’t approve of his choice, but she didn’t press the issue. She simply drew an arrow from her quiver and checked its fletching. "I just wanted to make sure you knew what you’d bought."

They made camp without a fire as the sun slipped behind the western ridge, taking shelter beneath a shallow rock overhang to escape the rising wind. They dared not strike a single match; the smoke would have betrayed their position for miles around. Marcus slumped against the damp rock face with a groan, his bad leg stretched out, while his wife immediately knelt beside him to wrap his bruised ribs in a dry wool cloth and press a waterskin to his lips.

Henrik sat on a flat stone, cleaning the mud from his boots with a handful of dry moss. "What kind of curse is the hollow death anyway?" he asked softly into the darkness. "I’ve heard of brain rot curse in werewolves, but I’ve never seen a wolf who has been cursed with hollow death."

"It’s old magic," Hannah said, her back against the rock face as she rubbed resin onto her bowstring. "Grandmother used to speak of the packs near the Black Marshes. They say the curse forces the cursed wolf to breed with animals and only eat the meat of animals dead from sickness. Their own blood would turn sour. Their skin forgets how to stretch, and bone forgets how to break."

"Glad our blood is sound," Henrik grumbled, spitting on the ground. "Even if we starve, at least our ribs don’t fuse together."

"It doesn’t matter what’s wrong with them," said Dane, sitting near the edge of the ledge, his hands wrapped in strips of torn linen to protect his raw knuckles. "All that matters is how we’re going to neutralize that horn."

"If Garron blows that thing again, we’re done for," Henrik stated bluntly. "It turns your brain into a slurry of parasites. You can’t even hold a knife, let alone fight..."

"It turns the brain into parasites," Marcus growled from his corner, his wife’s hand resting protectively on his shoulder. "You noble wolves have all those fine, sharp senses. We don’t. My blood is too thin, and my wife has none at all. That whistling made my ears ring on the road, but it didn’t pin me to the ground like it did you."

Dane looked at the old farmer, then at the skinning knife resting on Destiny’s mother’s lap. "You could stay on your feet?"

"I could stand," Marcus said in a flat, hard voice. "And I know full well how to drive an iron point into a man’s chest."

Dane nodded slowly, absorbing the tactical reality of the situation. "Then Henrik and I will plug our ears with beeswax and pine resin to dampen the effect. We won’t shift form. We’ll fight them as men, lulling them into lowering their guard. When Garron raises that bone instrument to his lips, the two of you will fire."

Above them, the wind howled through the pines; the temperature plummeted as the sky turned a violent, dark purple, the color of a bruise.

At midnight, the rain began to fall—a cold, torrential downpour that washed away their tracks, soaked their clothes, and ensured that the next day’s battle would be fought in freezing mud.

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