Marked by the Alpha

The river is supposed to kill you.

That's what they promised, the elders who watched with folded arms as you were dragged to Silvercrest's border — that no exile survives the crossing into Blackfang territory. The current takes you, or the cold does. Or they do.

You survive the current. You survive the cold. Which leaves them.

They come out of the treeline without a sound, three wolves the size of horses, and shift in the moonlight into warriors with silver-edged spears. No questions. Questions, apparently, are above their rank. They march you — soaked, shaking, twenty years old as of four hours ago — through miles of black pine to a fortress of timber and stone, into a hall lined with staring faces, and force you to your knees before a man on a carved chair.

You know what he is before anyone speaks. It's in the way the entire room angles toward him like trees toward light.

Alpha Kane Draven is younger than the stories and worse than the warnings — a scar through one brow, forearms mapped with old silver burns, stillness like a drawn bow. He studies you for a long, airless moment.

"Silvercrest exile." His voice is low gravel. "The law is clear on trespassers."

He rises, descends the dais, and crouches to your level. Close enough that you hear it — the sharp, involuntary breath he takes. Something flashes through his eyes. Shock. Fury. Hunger.

"Leave us," he orders the hall, without looking away from you.