Chapter 3: Silverfang storm
RONAN'S POV
The heat was palpable, wrapping around my exposed skin, thick with the smell of minerals and stone age. Steam rose in lazy tendrils from the obsidian-black surface of our sacred hot spring, deep within the bosom of our mountain stronghold. Here, in the silent watch of carved wolf figurines, Silverfang Alphas sought clarity. Or tried to. Tonight, the heat felt stifling, the silence oppressive, as though the mountain itself waited patiently, holding its breath.
A week. It had been a week since that damned raven arrived, its feathers slick with rain, carrying the Nightfang seal. An invitation. To the Bloodmoon Hunt. Kael’s crude scrawl practically dripped with gloating anticipation. ‘Honor us with your presence, Alpha Triplets. Let the strongest claim the tainted prize.’ We’d tossed it onto the council table like a piece of offal. Talon had spat on the hearthstones. Kieran had barely raised an icy eyebrow, the gesture was clear: Beneath us. And it was. We were Silverfangs. We did not participate in Nightfang's vicious spectacles. We hunted for territory, for survival, for challenge, not for the slow, screaming torture of some hapless wretch slaughtered as sport under a cursed moon.
I'd pushed it aside. Or attempted to.
But the invitation loomed in the air. Like an odor.
A restlessness settled into my marrow, a tingling at the back of my neck that the hot water could not soothe. I shut my eyes, falling farther, searching for peace and clarity.
Then I was thrown into a vision.
Darkness. And then light. Then crimson.
Blood. An ocean of it, thick and cloying, rising with terrifying speed. It wasn't just the sight; it was the smell, copper and iron, sharp and overwhelming, mingling with something else, something sweet and wild. Honeysuckle.
Then I saw her.
Floating, suspended in a swirling pool of blood. Pale skin like moonlight on snow, contrast to w gore. Dark hair like raven's feathers around her face, tendrils stroking her neck. But it was her eyes that caught me, held me hostage even as the blood flowed down to her lips. Silver. Pure, shining silver, wide with terror, but with a depth, a defiance that cut through the horror. They clung to mine across the impossible distance of the vision. Begging. Blaming. Absolutely captivating.
She wasn't shrieking. Her lips were parted in a silent gasp as the heavy tide closed on her lips, threatening to engulf her lungs. The disparity was appallingly sensual and utterly revolting. The smooth column of her throat, the slope of her jaw, the dark sweep of her lashes on her cheek. all in frames of drowning blood. The honeysuckle scent intensified, curling around the salt-tang of tears and the metallic reek of death. It wasn't a scent; it was a pull, a physical hook deep within my belly, drawing me to her, to that red oblivion.
My own gasp tore across scalding air as I sat upright in the pool, water cascading off my chest. My heart thumped against my ribs like a trapped animal. The scent, Honeysuckle and salt. It clung to my nostrils, strong and raw, cutting through the mineral steam. The pull of the siren thrummed against my nerves, an otherworldly cord tying me to that silver-eyed woman drowning in her own hell. It wasn't a vision. It was a call. A damsel in distress and I was tied to her somehow.
I sprang out of the pool, water spilling, and grabbed a rough linen towel, my head thinking faster than my heart. I didn't worry about clothing, I simply draped on leathers and a thick tunic.
The huge oak doors groaned shut behind me, the noise echoing within the resounding, torchlit chamber.
Talon lounged in his massive chair next to the roaring hearth, honing the already lethal bite of his greatsword with careful, scraping strokes. Kieran sat in front of him, balanced unnervingly on the edge of the table, religiously polishing his throwing knives with oil and cloth, his face as inscrutable and unforgiving as the glacial rivers outside. Maps and papers were in a forgotten pile. The ravens' crumpled invitation stayed where we'd discarded it. The two pairs of eyes, Talon's blazing amber, Kieran's glacial blue, flashed to me as I approached the center table. The lingering scent of honeysuckle and blood seemed to cling to me, an ectoplasmic aura they couldn't help but notice. Talon's nostrils quivered slightly. Kieran's eyes grew cold.
"Brothers," I growled, my voice raspier than I intended, still rough from the vision's grip. "We will ride in a few days. For the Bloodmoon Hunt."
The rough rasp of Talon's whetstone stopped short. He lowered the massive sword slowly, his forehead creased like stormclouds looming over the summits of the peaks. "The what?" he grumbled, thick incredulity in his voice. "Have the vapors scrambled your brain, Ronan? That Nightfang pissing contest?"
Kieran didn't glance up, but his hands froze on the shining blade. "Explain." The one word was ice.
"I had a vision," I said, placing my hands on the old weathered wood of the table, leaning forward. The image of those eyes, silver, wide with fear, flashed before mine. "It was about a girl with silver eyes." I locked eyes with Talon's astonished gaze, then Kieran's unnervingly analytical one. "I felt her fear, her power. It's a draw, brothers. I think she might be my mate."
Talon slammed his fist down on the table, and the maps unfurled. "You're telling me that we go to the hunt. For what?" he exploded, rising to his feet. "Sport? To stand around and allow Kael's hounds tear some perpetrator to pieces? Or, worse, join in? Have you lost sight of the fact that we are not common animals?" His amber eyes flashed with outrage. "We do not play with our prey like famished curs!"
"She’s not food!" The retort burst from me, sharper than intended. The possessive pull in my gut tightened. "I feel this pull towards her, I could feel her pain.”
"Pain?" Talon sneered, his face twisted with disgust. He flicked his hand toward the window, toward the cold, beautiful world where we were masters. "The world is in pain, Ronan. Let the weaklings die there. We do not hunt phantoms born of steam and boredom." He laid his hand on his sword again, the dismissal final.
Kieran finally looked up, his cold eyes locking onto mine.
He tilted his head, predator assessing prey, or perhaps riddle. "A vision is smoke, Ronan," he spoke, his voice as level as the granite steppes. "Scent is wind. You propose gambling Silverfang prestige, possibly provoking a war with Nightfang for a caprice? For a damned offering?" He picked up the invitation that rested deeper by his feet and let it dangle from his fingers like a carrion. "The cost outweighs the ghostly reward." The denial was a body blow. The ghost scent of honeysuckle teased me, blended with the metallic flavor of her blood. But Talon's stubbornness was a mountain, and Kieran's logic a glacier. They only saw danger and humiliation.
The days crawled by.
The fortress felt confining. The ghostly pull became a chronic ache, a vibration in my body, a scratch I couldn't get rid of. My dreams were of silver eyes. I smelled honeysuckle on winter mountain breezes where none flowered. I watched my brothers. Over the days, Talon's normal ferocity grew jagged, striding the walls like a caged wolf, snarling at nothing. Kieran had spent an hour in the archives, nominally reading border reports, but his hard eyes had been elsewhere, unfocused, fingers too often tapping a soundless, agitated rhythm on parchment. The ghost of the invitation, and the unspoken tension of my seeing, hung in the air. On the third night, when we had a tense, wordless dinner, a gale howled down from the very highest mountains, rattling the thick shutters. Talon suddenly slammed down his tankard, squinted amber eyes not at me, but out into the storm. "Bloody wind has a stink tonight," he growled, barely audible to himself. "Something’s nipping."
Kieran, cutting the venison with a delicate finger, did not look up, but his hand hesitated for the flicker of an instant. "The pines are restless," he replied, his voice denuded of its habitual absolute authority. "Pressure builds."
I said nothing. But the hook in my belly cinched tighter. They felt it too. The call wasn't exclusive to me any longer. The mountain itself hummed with it.
During the evening before the Hunt, when the unnatural blue hue tinted the twilights, Talon suddenly stood up from sharpening his blades. He turned to face me in the armory, his own face grave, tormented, but the excited energy calmed. "We need to go to the damn hunt to see what is going on."
Kieran appeared silently at the door, already clad in his black, tight-fitting travel leathers, the knives buckled at his hips glinting. His hard eyes locked with mine, Talon's. He made a single curt nod. "We consider the variable. See what’s going on." His tone did not encourage argument, the decision had been made. We were leaving.
We ran like the tempest. Three huge wolves razing ancient pines along Silverfang's rim, our breath misting in the cutting air, our muscles tensing and relaxing with lethal grace beneath us.
When we approached Nightfang territory, the scent hit us like a blow, penetrating the crisp pine and snow.
Sweet. Impossibly sweet. Like wild honeysuckle blooming under a summer sun. But beneath. the faraway, unmistakable tang of salt. Tears. And something else, something harsh and metallic. Fear? Blood?
It was far off, carried by the cold wind from the Nightfang compound, miles distant. But it was present. Indubitable. The scent from my vision.
Talon, his magnificent wolf body tense against me, held his muzzle aloft, breathing deeply. His amber eyes, usually blazing with fury, held a flicker of something else, surprise, confusion, awakening, reluctant realization. He gave a low, rumbling growl, not of anger, but of simple, animal understanding. He turned his great head to regard me directly in the moonlight.
"Something," he mindlinked, the word rough, reluctant, quivering through his beast's chest and into the cold night air, "is in the air."
Kieran, to my left, was silent. His head canted forward, nostrils quivering slightly, his icy stare focused intently on the distant, moonlit row of trees where the smell started. The detached coldness was still there, but now intent, cutting as a knife, slicing away at the unachievable sweetness in the breeze.
The ethereal cord pulled taut. She was here.
Without a sound, I walked on, into the Whispering Woods, into the center of the honeysuckle and salt and fear. My brothers followed me, silent ghosts at my back. The Bloodmoon Hunt had begun, and its reward was something much more than Kael could have dreamed.
She was mine.
I just had to reach her before the darkness could.