Chapter 1 Why Is It Afraid to Bite Me?
Ella's POV:
A jagged piece of ice sliced into my palm. I, Ella Marlowe, braced myself against the steps and looked up just as a gray wolf emerged from the trees.
Its back stood higher than my waist. Dried blood crusted its muzzle, and where its left eye should have been, there was nothing but an empty, black socket.
It was a feral wolf, one that had lost its mind and could no longer shift back into human form.
Yet a faded leather cord still hung around its neck, with half a broken wedding ring dangling from it.
"Get up," Kate Harris called from inside the gate. "Cedric's not here. Nobody's coming to carry you back inside."
Several people standing by the gate laughed.
Gripping the stone step, I fixed my gaze on the wolf's remaining eye and struggled to steady my breathing.
'Don't come any closer.'
The wolf stopped baring its fangs. Its tail dropped, and it slowly retreated into the woods.
I'd barely had time to catch my breath when Kate seized me by the back of my collar and dragged me through the gate.
"See that? Even that thing didn't want to bite her. What's there to be afraid of?"
I looked up at her. "I'm the one who made it back off."
"Nope. The guards are the ones who beat it into submission." Kate turned toward the watchtower. "You've been guarding this border for three years, but somehow she's the one getting all the credit."
"All she has to do is sit around while the rest of us fix her windows," someone muttered.
It was Evan Carver.
Last year, when his wife went into labor, I'd stayed with him at the hospital all night. And just last month, he'd trudged through the snow to repair my window, insisting that he couldn't let me spend another night in the cold.
Now, even with my hand bleeding right in front of him, all he seemed to care about was the work he'd done for me.
"I got frostbite on my hands that night," he complained. "She was nice and warm in her cabin while the rest of us were packed into a drafty barracks."
Someone beside him immediately chimed in, "She says she's tired, and she gets to rest. I get hurt, and I'm still expected to stand watch."
It wasn't the first time I'd heard complaints like these.
At the beginning of winter, several guards had grumbled about my cabin in the dining hall. Alpha Cedric Nelly had told them then and there that keeping the wolves calm was a form of night watch in itself, and that I needed my rest to do it.
After that, no one brought it up when he was around. Whenever they saw me, they still smiled and greeted me as usual.
I'd thought they understood.
Now I realized they'd simply been too afraid to complain in front of Cedric.
"I never asked you to..."
"That's just it. You never have to ask," Evan cut in. "Cedric takes care of everything for you."
Kate smiled.
Even after defeating three guards in the snow, she hadn't looked nearly as pleased as she did now.
"Then shift," she challenged, lifting her chin. "Show us your wolf. Or fight me."
"I can't."
"You hear that?" Kate swept her gaze over the others. "And we're all supposed to keep looking after her just because she says we should?"
Cedric was the leader of the Silverpine Pack, the Alpha everyone answered to.
And I was his mate, the pack's Luna.
When Kate first learned I held that title, the first thing she'd asked was whether I could shift.
She'd arrived in Silverpine just ten days earlier. The dozen or so people who'd escaped from the north with her claimed they owed their lives to her. She'd fought off three feral wolves single-handedly and led them safely out of a valley.
The wounds on her back hadn't even healed before she started challenging our guards, winning three fights in a row.
Cedric had appointed her captain. Then, when a blizzard stranded our supply convoy beyond the mountain, he'd taken a rescue party out to help, leaving Kate in charge of the town's defenses.
"Cedric said no one was allowed to force her to shift," one of the guards reminded her.
Kate shot him a glance.
"He put me in charge of keeping this place safe. And when he comes back, I'm going to show him that everyone can get by perfectly well without giving her special treatment."
She pointed toward my cabin beside the watchtower.
"The guards on night duty can sleep there tonight."
Evan was the first to perk up. Even the two guards who'd hesitated earlier began making their way toward my cabin.
I pressed my hand over the cut in my palm.
"I need to rest. There are more wolves out there in the woods..."
But Kate had already seized the pine-branch badge pinned to my chest.
"If you're going to wear that badge, you're supposed to protect this pack." She stared at me. "So tell me, how exactly do you plan on doing that?"
