Moving silently over the carpet of dead needles, I ran faster.

Even with sensitive predator eyes, I could only just make out the carriage as I moved over the rocky slope above the road—and there, crouched on an outcropping, the warg.

Tensing, the muscles taut in his legs as he prepared to leap, his scent so powerful it was nauseating. Lips were drawn back over a snout longer and thinner than any natural wolf’s, revealing the double-row of jagged teeth.

The growl in my throat rolled through the air, and the warg’s head whipped around. Narrow eyes gleamed with ill intent, a poisonous, mottled green.

I approached, unafraid of him—he was so young and desperate, no more a threat to me than the buzzing of a fly. “He has sent you here to die.”

The carriage rattled on into the fog, the occupants unaware of how closely death’s fingers had brushed the backs of their necks.

The warg said nothing, his breathing thick but shallow. He stared at me, frozen in place, muscles still bunched for a leap.

“Do you have any last words?”

The warg’s tongue flicked out, licking nervously at his teeth. “Eat… the girl. Must eat it.”

I rose to my full height, claws flexing. “Wrong words.”

The warg wasted a precious second of his life glancing at the forest—debating the outcome of flight.

He wasted another when he looked back at me, hackles rising in a ridge along his spine, preparing himself for the leap.

He never had the chance. I was not there, and then I was.

My fist buried in the warm, pulsing sack of his abdomen. Soft, slippery flesh split under my claws. The patter of blood on stone and the warg’s weakening breaths the only sounds in the forest.

The light began to fade from those thin eyes, and he raised a paw to claw half-heartedly at my chest.

“I would pity you, but you chose this. You chose the murder of a woman who had done nothing to you. You were too young to throw your life away so easily.”

The warg panted, jaws snapping weakly.

“Hakkon knew you didn’t have a prayer,” I told him, and ripped my claws upwards, tearing out his heart.

I dropped the twitching organ, slid my claws from the warg’s body, and let him sink to the ground.

The boy did not return to his human form, not even with his last breath. What the Forians did in Wargyr’s name was as permanent as the metamorphosis I had undergone.

It was the work of minutes to drag him deeper into the forest, obscured from the road by the swirling veils of fog. I left him curled in the hollow under a pine tree, a shallow grave for a lost soul.

In death, at least, he would serve a higher purpose: feeding the wild creatures of my keep. Within a fortnight, not even bones would remain.

Chasing after the carriage on all fours, I cursed Hakkon. To take young men, hardly more than children, to encourage them to bleed innocents to strike a blow he knew would not scratch my hide—he threw away their lives.

The Veladari did not share a shred of my pity for the young wargs. They had lived too long with the threat of teeth looming over them, always stalking from the forest.

But despite my hatred for the Forians, I understood all too well the allure of the monstrous.

I had felt it myself once, lying on the rocky ground and waiting for the end, my guts torn out of my body and the blood of a dead warg cooling on my face.

The moon had been full and ripe, shining down on me as I lay sucking in my last breaths. It had been a beautiful night to die, its silver light dimming as my blood poured out of me.

And then a woman, a predator wrapped in the skin of perfection, crept from the shadows of the trees. Her skin was as smooth as porcelain, eyes glowing in the dark.

“You poor, brave boy,” she had said, crouching next to me, fangs glinting in the fading light. The rough commoner’s vowels of her speech were full of admiration. “What a shame you found the wolf before I did. Such heroics… any vampire would be pleased with this death.”

I could not answer then. My throat was clotted with gore, every breath a struggle. The vampire was no more than a blur by then, but still her crooked grin shone brighter than the moon.

“It seems so wasteful to let such a fearless soul vanish. Would you like a second chance?”

I had, indeed.

She had shed her blood into my open veins, raising me from the sucking whirlpool of death into the burning thirst for blood, the perfection of a new life.

And later still, when the wolves seemed to hide behind every tree in Veladar and the people—who had barricaded themselves behind stone walls and lived in terror—finally broke and sent ambassadors Below, begging for aid and alliance, she had told me to do what I must… so long as I had the conviction in my heart to see it through.

Because the price to be paid would be my own monstrosity, and my own guilt, for as long as I lived.

I had accepted it with honor. But what Hakkon did was not for the good of his people. It was not for nobility, nor for the protection of what was his.

It was because they were always hungry for more, never satisfied with their own lot, and he would throw boys in the skins of wolves at me until he died or I did.

And so long as I could stand between the Rift-kin and Wargyr’s ravenous worshippers, between Cirrien and a terrible death, I would never be sorry for the monstrosity I had chosen.

I caught up to the carriage, my nostrils open for warg-sign, but Hakkon had sent only the one. I counted myself fortunate; Andrus’s first selection had been hunted by a pack.

But Hakkon knew we no longer left the fate of the brides up to chance. This one had been a long shot, a message made of fangs: he knew I had upheld my end of the contract, and he was keeping an eye on me.

On her.

Unseen, prowling in their wake, I did not leave Cirrien again until the road climbed upwards, leading us out of the ocean of fog and through a thick, dark forest.

The walls of Ravenscry loomed ahead, the castle a stronghold undefeated by the wargs. The vampire legions pacing the walls came to a halt, all eyes on Eryan, and when they saw he still wore his hat, the gates were lifted to allow him through.

Cirrien… she would be able to see me soon. There was no fog here to hide my form, the more bestial aspects I had dragged to the surface for the sake of the hunt.

I held back, my gallop slowing to a walk, then to a crawl. The gate clattered down, cutting me off from the carriage.

Instead, I climbed the walls, mortar crumbling around my claws. I perched on the wall, peering down into the castle bailey as Eryan opened the carriage doors with a flourish.

Wyn emerged first, and then Cirrien. Her fiery hair was a beacon, a flame in the pearly mist of the Rift.

I watched Cirrien’s hands engage in a gentle, hesitant dance as she looked up at the castle, awe written all over her face. The commander of my legions dropped from the wall to meet her, a welcoming smile displaying her fangs.

This poor girl… I had brought her here, cut her off from any semblance of a normal life.

Had I consigned her to a lifetime of silence and misery? Would she hide in her tower, a flame slowly dwindling in the dark?

I crouched in the shadows, looking down at myself. Between the thickening cartilage of my transformation and the warg’s last weakened blows, my shirt was shredded. My fangs had grown, lengthening so that clear speech would be even more difficult.

We would marry tonight, as the moon rose in the sky. Only then would the Accords be considered upheld by my people, when the vows between us were completed.

It would take days to undo what I had done to myself tonight.

Cirrien had met me at my best, the most attractive face I could hope to present. She would not be marrying me at my worst, but… it could hardly reassure her when I arrived at the altar far more hideous than when she had met me.