Iron Moon

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

RONAN

"You cannot avoid your own pack house forever, Ronan."

Silas says it through the mind link while I am still shifting back in the trees, half a mile from the house I told him to prepare for the Sorren family, the house I have been circling instead of entering for the last twenty minutes like a coward.

I am not avoiding it, I tell him. I am making sure the perimeter is secure.

You ran the entire southern border twice already today. The perimeter has never been more secure in the history of this pack. Get to the house.

He is right, and I hate that he is right, and I pull on clothes from the pack I keep tied to my ankle when I run and walk the rest of the way like a man heading toward something he cannot outrun no matter how fast Fenrik moves.

Fenrik has not settled since the road. He keeps circling under my skin, restless in a way I recognize from nowhere in my life except the stories older wolves tell about finding a mate, the kind of stories I stopped believing applied to me a long time ago.

You need to claim her, he tells me, for the fortieth time since this morning.

I need to keep this pack from tearing itself apart, which I cannot do if I claim a mate the council has never heard of, from a bloodline no one has vetted, on the same month Renner Cross has been quietly gathering support to challenge my right to lead.

Renner Cross. Third-generation council elder, sharp as a blade and twice as cold, who has spent the last year asking pointed questions about records from the year my father died, records that do not exist because they were never allowed to exist. He has not said the word illegitimate to my face yet. He does not need to. I can see it sitting behind his eyes every single council meeting, waiting for one mistake big enough to drag into the light.

A formal mate claim means lineage documentation witnessed by three neighboring Alphas. It means my bloodline gets placed under a magnifying glass at the exact moment Renner is already looking for cracks.

I cannot do it. I built seven years of careful silence to protect this pack from a war over succession, and I am not about to burn it down because my wolf caught one scent on a country road and decided the world had changed.

Except it has. I can feel it has, even standing here arguing with myself in the middle of my own front yard.

I hear the car before I see it, Silas leading it in slow up the long drive, and I make myself walk to the pack house instead of standing in the yard like a man waiting for something. I make it to my office. I tell myself I will greet the family formally, professionally, the way I greet every family Frostbind takes in, and then I will go back to my desk and let Silas handle the rest.

That plan lasts exactly as long as it takes Elias to find me there.

"The council has already heard," he says, closing my office door behind him. "Renner is asking why the Alpha personally ran the border for a family of rogues instead of sending warriors."

"Because a girl is in danger from a man who has already lost one Luna and clearly intends to break another."

"Because your wolf caught her scent on the road and you have not been able to sit still since," Elias says, and I do not answer, because there is no point lying to the one man who has known every version of this secret since before I could shift.

"I am not claiming her, Elias."

"Fenrik will not agree to that forever."

"Fenrik does not run this pack."

Elias looks at me for a long moment, the kind of look that makes me feel seventeen years old again, standing over my father's grave being handed a title that was never mine. "You have spent seven years making yourself small to protect a secret that is not even yours to be ashamed of, Ronan. One day that is going to cost you something you cannot get back."

I do not answer him, because Silas's voice comes through the mind link right then, telling me the family has arrived, and because some things are easier to face when you have

somewhere else to point your attention.

I go downstairs. I tell myself I am simply greeting guests. I tell myself the pull I felt on the road was exhaustion, stress, the strange scent of a stranger's car window catching me off guard, nothing more.

Then I round the corner into the front hall and I hear her laugh at something Silas says, low and unguarded, and every excuse I built on the walk down the stairs falls apart at once.

She turns around before I have said a single word, before she has any reason to know I am standing there at all, like some part of her already knew, and her eyes land on mine and I watch her entire face change, surprise, then something wary, then something she tries very hard to hide and does not quite manage.

Fenrik goes utterly silent inside me, which he has never once done in his life, silent the way you go quiet in front of something you are afraid to frighten off.

"Alpha, I am sorry," she says, bowing her head fast, like she has been caught doing something wrong just by looking at me, and something in my chest twists hard enough that I nearly step forward before I catch myself.

"You do not need to apologize." My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. "Welcome to Frostbind."

I watch her father's eyes move between us, quick, assessing, and I realize with a cold drop in my stomach that he already suspects exactly what just happened in this hallway. I watch him decide, in real time, whether that is a blessing or a threat to his daughter's safety.

I do not blame him for not being sure yet.

I am not sure either.

"Come to my office," I say, forcing my voice back into something an Alpha should sound like. "We will make you pack, get you settled, and discuss what protection you need against Draven."

I turn to lead the way before anyone can see my face, because Fenrik is howling now, low and insistent, a sound I have not heard from him in years, and I need every ounce of control I have left just to keep walking in a straight line.

Behind me, I hear her fall into step, close enough that her scent wraps around me again, strawberries and cedar and something warmer underneath, and I think, with a kind of dread I have never felt before in my life, that keeping this secret just became the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

What I do not know yet, walking down that hallway with my back rigid and my wolf begging me to turn around, is that Renner Cross is already standing at the top of the stairs behind us, watching everything, and that by morning, the entire pack will know exactly what I felt the moment Ivy Sorren looked into my eyes.