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The wolf king’s guards were already shouting when I hit the palace roof.
“Stop her!”
Great plan. Terrible timing.
I ran anyway.
My boots slapped against black slate as I jumped the gap between two towers. A crossbow bolt cracked against the chimney beside my head. Stone dust hit my eyes. I stumbled, caught myself with one hand, and kept moving with the stolen seal jammed under my jacket.
The thing burned against my ribs.
Not warm. Burned.
“Mara!” someone yelled below. “You’re surrounded!”
“That’s cute,” I shouted back. “You should’ve said that before I got to the roof.”
A second bolt tore through my sleeve. Pain flashed down my arm. I glanced at the blood spreading across the cloth and swore.
The roof ended ahead.
Beyond it stood the palace’s highest tower, its iron balcony hanging over a drop that would turn my bones into soup. The only way across was a narrow stone bridge meant for servants, not desperate thieves with half the royal guard on their heels.
I grabbed the bridge rail and swung over.
For one stupid second, my body hung above the courtyard.
Then my fingers slipped.
I caught the lower edge with both hands. The seal punched into my chest. My shoulder screamed. Below me, torches moved across the palace yard like angry fireflies, and every one of those guards was looking up.
“Grab her!”
“Don’t let her fall!”
“Who cares if she falls?”
“King Ronan wants her alive!”
That last part made my stomach twist.
Alive was worse than dead when a wolf king wanted answers.
I hauled myself onto the bridge and crawled the last few feet. My knees hit stone. I rolled behind a stack of old supply crates and pressed my palm over my mouth.
Boots thundered across the roof behind me.
The seal dug into my ribs.
I had one job. Get in, steal the Blackthorn seal, get out, sell it to the medicine broker, and bring Nia home a bottle of fever drops before sunrise.
Simple.
Except the wolf king had returned early.
Except his guards had seen my face.
Except I had no idea why the seal felt like it was trying to brand me from the inside.
A guard stopped on the other side of the crates.
“Check under there.”
I held my breath.
Another man laughed. “You check it.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the one who said she was small.”
“I saw her from below.”
“Then climb under the crates and take a better look.”
Their voices moved closer.
I reached for the knife strapped to my thigh. My fingers closed around the worn handle. One guard. Maybe two. I could take two if they were stupid.
The palace guards were rich men’s sons, though. Rich men’s sons usually had no idea where to put their feet during a fight.
I shifted my weight.
The seal pulsed.
A sharp heat shot through my chest and down my left arm. My vision blurred. For half a second, I heard a growl that wasn’t coming from the guards.
Mine?
No.
Something bigger.
The guards went silent.
A low sound rolled across the roof.
Every boot stopped.
I knew that sound. Everyone in Grayharbor knew it. People whispered that King Ronan Blackthorn could make a room go quiet without raising his voice. They said he had killed three challengers with his bare hands. They said his wolf had gone mad after his father’s murder and that the king sometimes woke with blood on his teeth.
I didn’t know if all of that was true.
I knew the guards were suddenly scared.
“Your Majesty,” one of them said.
A man stepped onto the bridge.
I saw his boots first. Black leather. Silver buckles. No mud, no dust, nothing out of place. Then the hem of a long coat. Dark as wet coal.
Ronan Blackthorn stopped beside the crates.
“Move,” he said.
The guard nearest me swallowed. “She may be under there.”
“I said move.”
The guard moved.
I stayed flat against the stone and tried not to breathe too loudly.
Ronan crouched.
I saw his face through the gap between two crates.
He wasn’t what I expected. I’d pictured some scarred old monster with gray in his hair and a crown too big for his head.
He looked maybe thirty. Tall. Broad shoulders. Black hair falling over his forehead. His jaw was tight, and his eyes were a cold, pale gold that caught the torchlight.
His gaze dropped to my bloody sleeve.
Then his nose twitched.
He smelled the blood.
His pupils narrowed.
The guards backed away.
My knife was in my hand before I made the choice. I shoved the crate aside and slashed at his face.
Ronan caught my wrist.
Fast. Too fast.
His fingers closed around me like iron bands. I kicked him in the knee. He barely moved. I drove my forehead toward his nose instead.
He turned. My head hit his cheekbone.
“Damn it!” I shouted.
His grip tightened.
I twisted, dropped my knife, and slammed my elbow into his ribs. He grunted. That was something. I yanked my wrist free and sprinted toward the tower door.
I made it three steps.
Ronan grabbed the back of my jacket and threw me down.
The air left my lungs. Stone punched my stomach. Before I could roll away, he was on top of me, one knee pinning my hip and one hand locked around my throat.
“Where is it?”
His voice was low.
I stared up at him. “Where’s what?”
“The seal.”
“Oh, that old thing?”
His fingers pressed harder.
My pulse jumped under his palm. His eyes followed it. A muscle moved in his jaw.
He leaned closer.
The smell of him hit me. Smoke, leather, and something sharp like pine sap. Under it was the hot, wild scent of a wolf ready to tear through a locked door.
My body reacted before my brain could stop it.
My breath caught.
Ronan froze.
His nose brushed my cheek.
“What the hell?” he whispered.
I took advantage of the second he looked confused. I drove my knee upward.
He caught that too.
“Are you done?”
“Not even close.”
I reached into my jacket and pulled the seal free.
The silver disk flashed between us.
Ronan’s face changed.
Not surprise. Rage.
He seized the seal and shoved it into the stone beside my head. The metal cracked against the floor. A dark mark spread beneath it, thin lines crawling over the rock like black veins.
“You stole this from my private vault.”
“Borrowed.”
“You killed two sentries.”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“You cut one.”
“He grabbed me.”
“You crossed three locked gates.”
“Your locks are bad.”
His mouth pulled tight. “You broke into my palace, stole the symbol of my crown, and now you’re insulting my locks?”
“I’m having a rough night.”
For one heartbeat, the corner of his mouth almost moved.
Then the gold in his eyes flooded darker.
The change slammed through him.
His shoulders jerked. His hand left my throat and gripped the stone beside my head. Claws pushed from his fingertips, tearing through the glove he wore.
The guards started yelling.
“Your Majesty!”
“Get back!”
“His wolf is out!”
Ronan’s head snapped toward them.
A growl shook the bridge.
He was still looking at me, but I could see he wasn’t seeing me anymore. His breathing came rough and fast. His teeth lengthened. A vein stood out along his temple.
Moon-rage.
I’d heard of it. Every wolf in Grayharbor had.
When a pack leader lost control, the wolf took over. Sometimes for minutes. Sometimes for days. The last king of Blackthorn had broken a man’s spine during an episode and blamed the moon afterward.
Ronan lowered his face toward my throat.
His claws scraped stone.
I shoved at his chest. “Hey. Big guy. Maybe don’t bite me.”
He didn’t answer.
“Ronan.”
His eyes flicked to mine.
The name came out before I thought about it. He had never told me his name. The whole city knew it, but that wasn’t the point.
His nostrils flared.
He dragged in another breath.
Then he snarled and slammed my wrists above my head.
The seal lay between us on the stone.
“Tell me who sent you,” he said, but his voice sounded wrong. Too deep. Too rough.
“No one sent me.”
“Liar.”
“I’m a thief. We work for ourselves.”
His mouth opened.
I saw the tips of his fangs.
My whole body went cold.
Not from fear. From the seal.
Heat raced through my chest again. The metal disk started to shake under his hand. A hairline crack opened across its surface, and a tiny red bead formed where the bolt had cut my arm.
The blood slid down my sleeve.
It fell onto the seal.
The world snapped.
A blast of heat shot across the bridge. Ronan jerked away from me with a broken gasp. His claws vanished. The black veins under the seal burned red, then disappeared.
For a second, nobody moved.
Ronan stared at the blood on the silver disk.
Then he looked at me.
The gold had left his eyes. They were clear now. Still cold, still furious, but his face belonged to him again.
“What did you do?” he asked.
I pulled my wrists free and scrambled backward. “You were the one trying to eat me.”
“Your blood.”
“Yeah, it does that sometimes.”
That was a lie.
My blood had never done anything except stain shirts and make medicine sellers charge extra.
Ronan reached for me.
I grabbed the seal first.
The metal was cold now. Dead cold.
He caught my ankle and yanked.
I hit the floor hard enough to bite my tongue. Blood filled my mouth. I spat at him.
He looked down at the red on the stone.
The same sharp scent filled the air.
His face went still.
Not angry this time.
Hungry.
Behind him, one of the guards whispered, “Mate.”
Ronan turned so fast the man stumbled backward.
“Shut up.”
The guard’s eyes dropped. “Your Majesty, I only—”
“I said shut up.”
Ronan looked back at me.
My fingers tightened around the seal.
He saw it. Saw the way I kept my hand over my ribs. Saw the blood on my sleeve. Saw every lie I hadn’t managed to tell yet.
“What’s your name?”
“None of your business.”
He stood and hauled me up by my jacket. My feet barely touched the ground.
“Name.”
“Mara.”
“Mara what?”
I smiled because it was better than showing him my fear. “You can call me whatever you want after I’m gone.”
His gaze dropped to the pendant at my throat.
Cheap silver. Dented moon charm. The only thing my mother had left me before she died.
Ronan’s hand shot out and closed around it.
The pendant snapped.
“No!”
I drove my fist into his mouth.
He released the chain. I caught the pendant before it hit the stone, then lunged for the tower door.
I got one hand on the handle.
Ronan pinned me against the door, his body covering mine. His breath touched my ear.
“Your sister is sick,” he said.
My blood turned to ice.
He knew.
“How do you know her?”
“I know everyone who comes into my city looking for black-market medicine.”
“Stay away from her.”
“Then tell me why your blood stopped my wolf.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.”
His hand slid down my arm and closed over the cut. His thumb pressed into the torn fabric.
Pain shot through me.
He watched my face.
“You’re lying again.”
“Maybe I just don’t like you.”
“That’s not the problem.”
“What is?”
He leaned close enough that his lips nearly touched my temple.
“The problem is that my wolf knows you.”
The guards went silent behind him.
Ronan’s eyes locked onto mine.
“And it wants you alive.”
I didn’t get a chance to ask what that meant.
The seal flashed between my fingers.
A chain snapped around my wrist.
Then another.
The world tilted. The last thing I saw was Ronan reaching for my face while the silver pendant burned hot against my palm.
When I woke, my wrists were chained to a bed in a room I had never seen.
Ronan Blackthorn stood across from me in a black coat, facing a dozen furious nobles.
He lifted the stolen seal for everyone to see.
“This,” he said, “is Mara Vale. The woman who stole my seal.”
His gaze found mine.
“And the woman who stole my debt.”
A councilman stepped forward. “Your Majesty, she is human.”
Ronan’s fingers tightened around the seal.
“No,” he said. “She’s my mate.”
The room exploded.
And somewhere beneath the palace, something answered with a second growl.