I dragged my knees through the heavy powder. The icy crust tore through my thin pants, scraping my skin raw with every agonizing inch.
"Just a little further," I whispered, clutching my stomach. "Stay with me. Please, stay with me."
Another contraction ripped through my abdomen. I folded completely forward, burying my face in the freezing white drift. The searing agony on my collarbone pulsed in perfect rhythm with my racing heart. Caleb's brand had melted my skin, but the warm blood pooling between my legs terrified me far more.
I hauled my upper body toward a massive, dead oak tree. I slumped against the rotting bark, leaving a dark red trail painted across the snow behind me.
"Look what the mighty Alpha threw away," a raspy voice echoed from the pines.
I jerked my head up. Three shadows detached from the tree line. Rogues. Their yellow eyes gleamed with starvation and pure malice.
"Stay back," I warned, my voice shaking violently.
"She's bleeding out," a second rogue sneered, stepping into the dim gray light. "Smells like a ruined pup. The Alpha didn't even want his own spawn."
"Shut your mouth!" I yelled.
I blindly grabbed a thick, broken branch from the snow and pointed the jagged end at them. "I will take your eye out before I let you touch me."
The first rogue let out a grating laugh. "You can't even stand, little Luna."
"I'm not a Luna anymore," I spat. "So I don't have to play by the rules. Come closer."
"Gladly," the third one growled, lunging forward.
A deafening roar shook the forest floor.
It wasn't a howl. It was a sound of pure massacre.
A massive black shape erupted from the blizzard. It slammed into the leaping rogue, crushing the smaller wolf into the frozen earth. Bone snapped with a sickening crack. The rogue didn't even have time to whimper before the giant beast tore its throat out.
The remaining two rogues scrambled backward, their tails tucked securely between their legs.
I pressed my spine hard against the dead tree. The black wolf turned toward me. He was a monster. Thick, jagged silver scars crisscrossed his snout and shoulders, painting a map of endless violence over his pitch-black fur. He stood twice as tall as Caleb's wolf form.
He didn't bare his teeth at me. He just stared.
"Are you going to finish the job?" I asked, a bitter, hollow laugh escaping my cracked lips. "Get it over with."
The giant wolf shook his massive head, flicking blood off his muzzle. Then, his bones began to snap and reform.
I watched in stunned silence as the beast shifted. In his place stood a towering man. His chest was bare, marked by the same horrific scars that covered his wolf form. Muscles corded tightly across his arms and abdomen, completely unaffected by the freezing temperature.
He reached down, grabbing a heavy, dark fur cloak he must have dropped before the ambush.
"Who are you?" I demanded, tightening my grip on the branch.
"A neighbor," the man replied. His voice was gravel grinding over ice.
"I don't need a neighbor. I need you to back off."
"You are dying," he stated, his dark eyes dropping to the crimson stain soaking the snow around my legs.
"Brilliant observation," I shot back, forcing myself to sit up straighter. "Are you going to eat me or just critique my condition?"
"Neither."
He closed the distance between us in two long strides.
I swung the branch at his knees. He didn't even flinch. He caught the wood in his massive palm, snapping it in half with a flick of his wrist.
"Don't touch me," I hissed.
"You will freeze in five minutes," he countered, tossing the broken wood aside.
"Better the cold than another Alpha."
"I am not like the coward who threw you out."
"You all say that right before you ruin someone's life!" I yelled.
He ignored my outburst. He whipped the heavy fur cloak around my shoulders, engulfing me in immediate, suffocating warmth. It smelled of cedar and snow, entirely devoid of the suffocating pine scent Caleb carried.
Before I could push the pelt away, he leaned down. He slid one massive arm under my knees and the other behind my back.
"Put me down!" I ordered, thrashing against his chest.
"Stop fighting," he commanded softly.
He lifted me entirely off the ground. The sheer ease of his movement shocked me into stillness. When Caleb grabbed me in the bedroom, his grip was designed to hurt, to assert dominance, to break my will.
This man held me like I weighed nothing. His arms formed a solid, unbreakable cradle. My stiff, freezing body betrayed my anger, instinctively relaxing for a single, traitorous second against his rough, scarred chest. The heat radiating from his skin seeped through the thick fur, thawing the ice in my bones.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
"Because you fought them," he answered, holding my gaze. "Even on your knees."
"He kicked me out. He burned the mark off my neck."
"I can smell the charred flesh."
"Then you know I am nothing but a liability."
"I decide what is a liability on my land," he replied.
A low snarl interrupted us.
The two surviving rogues had circled back, joined by four more shadowy figures emerging from the blizzard. They formed a loose ring around the dead oak tree, their yellow eyes fixed directly on my bleeding legs.
"Put me down," I told him, panic spiking in my chest. "You can't fight six of them while holding me."
"I do not need to put you down to kill them," he said calmly.
"They want the meat," I insisted, pointing at the closest wolf. "They want the pup. Drop me and save yourself."
"I do not run from scavengers."
The largest rogue stepped forward, shifting into a scrawny, filth-covered man. "Hand over the female, Kaelen. She's exiled. She belongs to the wastes now."
Kaelen. The name registered in my foggy mind, but I couldn't place it.
"She belongs to no one," Kaelen stated, his grip tightening slightly around my waist.
"She's bleeding out," the rogue leader sneered, pointing a dirty finger at my boots. "We can smell the unborn pup from a mile away. It's a free meal. Give her up, or we take you both."
I braced myself. I expected Kaelen to drop me. I expected the exact same betrayal I had just suffered thirty minutes ago. Caleb threw me to the ice to save his own reputation. Why would a stranger risk his life for a broken, bleeding exile?
Kaelen didn't drop me.
Instead, he turned his head, fixing a deadly glare on the rogue leader. The air around us suddenly dropped in temperature, heavy with a lethal, suffocating pressure that made my ears ring.
He looked down at the crimson blood staining my pants, then shifted his dark eyes back to the encroaching shadows.
"This woman and the pup are mine," Kaelen growled, his voice vibrating with a terrifying promise. "Anyone who touches them dies."
