BOUND TO THE THORN KING

The Stranger in the Dark

Monnalissa's POV

"What is he?" the third rogue whimpers. "I can't feel my wolf."

Scar-Lip snarls, but his bravado cracks like thin ice. "I don't care who you are. The Ash rat is ours—"

The stranger moves.

One heartbeat he is at the clearing's edge. The next, his hand is around Scar-Lip's throat, hoisting the brute clean off the ground. No sound. No shift. Just brutal, impossible speed.

"Leave." One word, spoken low and rough as grinding stone. It vibrates through the clearing and settles deep in my belly, igniting a heat I do not understand.

He drops Scar-Lip, who crumples to the ground gasping. The three rogues scramble into the trees, tripping over roots, vanishing into the mist.

Then silence. Just him and me.

He turns to face me fully. Moonlight catches the hard line of his jaw, the stern set of his mouth, the silver fire still burning in his eyes. He is terrifying. He could kill me with a twitch of his fingers.

But I am not afraid. I am burning.

A wave of heat crashes over me—outward from my chest, through my limbs, pooling low in my belly. My breath hitches. His scent floods me: smoke, Weepwood sap, something dark and intoxicating that makes my wolf howl inside my ribs.

Mate.

I shove the word away. I just had my heart torn out. I do not get a mate.

"Why are you alone in the Shroud on Mating Day?" His voice scrapes against my skin like a physical touch.

"I ran." My voice is barely a whisper.

"From what?"

"Everything."

He steps closer, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. The heat rolling off his body reaches for me, wraps around my waist, pulls me in.

"You are in heat," he says, and there is something strained in his tone, like he is holding himself back with chains.

"Yes."

"I can help you. But once I touch you, I will not be able to stop. Is that what you want?"

I should say no. I should run. I know nothing about this man except that he moves like death and smells like home. But the heat is eating me alive, and somewhere beneath it, the pain of Pedri's betrayal is a raw wound I cannot bear to feel anymore.

"Please," I breathe. This time the word does not taste like defeat. It tastes like surrender I am choosing.

He breaks.

His hands cup my face, and his mouth crashes onto mine. The kiss is desperate and fierce—teeth and tongue and the sharp taste of blood where his lip catches on my teeth. I moan into his mouth, and he swallows the sound like it feeds him.

He backs me against a Weepwood trunk. The rough bark scrapes my shoulders through the torn blue dress. His body presses against mine, hard and unyielding, and I can feel every inch of him through the thin fabric. His hands slide down my sides, gripping my hips like he owns me already.

"Tell me to stop," he growls against my throat. His teeth graze the sensitive skin where my neck meets my shoulder, and a shudder wracks my entire body. "Tell me, and I will."

I shake my head. Words are gone. There is only the fire and the dark and this stranger who feels more like home than anything I have ever known.

"Say it," he demands, and his voice breaks on the last word. He is shaking. The iron control he wears like armor is cracking, and I feel the wild thing beneath pressing against the seams.

"Don't stop." I gasp it against his mouth. "Please, don't stop."

He lifts me like I weigh nothing. My legs wrap around his waist, my back still pressed to the tree, and the world narrows to the sensation of his mouth on my skin and his hands mapping my body like he is memorizing territory he intends to claim forever.

The night becomes a blur of heat and hunger.

He whispers things in the dark—rough, broken words I cannot quite catch but feel deep in my bones. I tangle my fingers in his hair and pull, and he groans against my throat. We fall to the forest floor at some point, a tangle of limbs on moss and fallen leaves. His body covers mine, and I cling to him like he is the only solid thing left in a world dissolving into mist.

Much later, I lie in his arms with my head on his chest. The mating heat has ebbed to a warm glow. Exhaustion pulls at my eyelids. He strokes my hair with a gentleness that does not match the ferocity of his earlier touch.

"Sleep," he murmurs. "I will keep watch."

I want to ask who he is. I want to ask why this feels like more than a stolen night. But my body is heavy, my mind fogged.

I sleep.

When I wake, it is dawn. Pale grey light filters through the canopy, and the mist has thinned to a cool haze.

He is gone.

I sit up, clutching the tattered remains of my dress to my chest. The moss beside me still holds the indent of his body. The air still carries the ghost of his scent.

And there is a mark on my neck.

I feel it before I see it—a warm, pulsing ache just above my collarbone. I scramble to a small pool of rainwater gathered in a hollow stone and peer at my reflection.

A silver mark spirals across my skin, delicate and intricate, like vines woven from moonlight. It glows faintly in the dim dawn light.

A claiming mark. He marked me.

Panic floods my chest. I press my fingers to the mark, and it pulses under my touch, sending a shiver through my entire body. This is not a normal mark. Normal marks fade within days. This one feels permanent, seared into my skin and deeper—into my very soul.

I have to get home. I have to hide this.

I stumble through the Shroud, and this time the trees are silent. The path opens before me like the forest is ushering me out. Within an hour, I reach the outskirts of the Iron Den.

My father's house looms ahead. The door swings open before I can touch it.

He stands in the doorway. His cold green eyes sweep over my torn dress, my tangled hair, the dirt on my cheeks. Fury twists his face.

"What the hell—" He snatches my arm and yanks me inside.

I stumble to my knees on the cold stone floor. My stepmother appears at the top of the stairs, her thin face pinched with disapproval. Behind her, Anah lounges against the railing in her crimson gown, watching me like I am a bug she scraped off her shoe.

"Where have you been?" my father demands. "The entire pack saw your humiliation, and then you vanish like a coward—"

He stops mid-sentence. His eyes fix on my neck.

I slap my hand over the mark, but it is too late. He grabs my wrist and wrenches it away. The silver spirals gleam in the torchlight. The room goes silent.

My father stares. Slowly, his eyes widen with something I have never seen in him before. Not fear. Closer to awe.

"This mark looks like it was left by a strong wolf," he mutters, almost to himself. He releases my wrist. "Who marked you?"

I open my mouth. No sound comes. I do not know his name. I do not know anything except the way his hands felt on my skin and the sound he made when he whispered against my throat.

"I don't know," I whisper.

Anah laughs, sharp and cruel. "You don't know? You spread your legs for a wolf and you don't even know his name? Mother Moon, Monnalissa, you really are pathetic."

My stepmother says nothing. Her silence is louder than any insult.

My father's jaw tightens. The shock fades, replaced by the cold calculation I know too well. He turns to my stepmother.

"Lock her in her room. No food. No visitors. I need to think."

"Father—"

"You have brought shame to this house for the last time." His voice is ice. "If this mark is as strong as it looks, it may be useful. If not..." He does not finish. He does not have to.

I am dragged up the stairs and shoved into my small room. The key turns with a sound that echoes through my bones.

I press my back against the door and slide to the floor, my knees pulled to my chest. The silver mark pulses against my skin, warm and steady, like a second heartbeat.

Somewhere out there, the stranger walks free with no idea what he has done to me.

And I have no idea that he already knows exactly who I am.