"Take me instead."

Three words. The fastest decision Guinevere had ever made in her life. No regrets.

Heads turned. 

"I am Guinevere Lunaris. King Lunaris's favorite daughter and crown princess. My value is higher." 

A ripple moved through the three hundred women and children chained behind her.

Alpha Stonehowl's eyes snapped to Guinevere. He let go of Maria's neck, sending her to the stone floor coughing.

"You would die for this lot?"

"Yes."

He stared in disbelief. Guinevere didn't flinch or look away.

"That takes some balls. I'll give you that," he said after a moment. "Let's see how brave he taught you to be when I open you on his floor."

Heat drained from her face, but she held his gaze.

Warriors seized her arms and shoved her forward to her knees in front of their Alpha.

The Alpha grabbed her jaw, tilting it up. Then he went very still. 

"So you're the secret Lunaris princess Renwick locks away. All that effort, and here you are on your knees." He crouched to her eye level, his fingers still clamped under her jaw. "Daddy's a liar, sweetheart."

He shoved her face aside and straightened.

"You," he barked to the nearest chained woman. "Is she untouched?"

The woman's voice was thin enough to snap. "Yes, Alpha Stonehowl."

"Has she had her first heat?"

"No, Alpha."

"Has she shifted?"

There was a pause, because the woman knew what this might mean.

"No. She is a runt."

Guinevere didn't let a muscle twitch. Her wolf stayed coiled and quiet somewhere deep in her chest. A secret no one in the room knew.

Stonehowl studied her for a long, silent moment.

"Change of plans. My son has a temper. You might actually last." He jerked his chin. "Cuff her. We're done."

Warriors pulled her to a stand and escorted her out of the throne room with the kind of grip on her arms that said 'try it.'

Degrading. Humiliating. She kept her shoulders back and eyes lifted. No one was in the streets. But she knew at least two hundred were there, all hidden. And they would not see the woman who just shielded them break. She refused. 

A little wolf pup peered out of a barrel. She was careful not to turn her head, but her eyes met his. One look and he understood. He lowered himself back down. 

They marched her past the courtyard to the south gate, and her stomach lurched. Impaled on silver spears along the wall were the heads of the old guards.

Old Bren, who had let her win at dice. Calder, who had taught her how to fight with a blade. 

On the wall above, letters dripped in fresh blood:

LUNARIS FALLS TONIGHT

Stonehowl watched her take it in and smiled.

Her eyes burned and overflowed before she could stop them, two hot lines down a face she was trying to keep blank.

They stopped in front of horses outside the castle walls.

A guard knotted a cloth around her mouth. Unnecessary. But okay. She wasn't planning on making conversation.

The same hands bound her ankles. Then, with one arm hooked around her waist, he mounted his horse, hoisting her up with him like she weighed nothing.

Cuffed. Gagged. And now side-saddle. Lovely. Like a regency painting titled 'Girl Being Trafficked.'

The horses broke into a dead gallop as if they were racing the clock. Stonehowl clearly had an inkling that Lunaris's army would be back tonight.

Whether her father would actually send for her was the question. Even if he did, he'd still be a day behind. The math looked grim.

Her eyes closed from exhaustion and the inability to accept this as her new reality.

What woke her was the sound of a roar from above. She blinked a few times, and her vision groggily came into focus. Tight chains bound her back against a tree, where she had been for hours, judging by the snow dusting her dress and the violent shivers racking her body.

She glanced up. A dragon silhouetted the moon, then disappeared into the clouds.

Voices carried from the fire fifteen yards away.

"Hell's a dragon doin' on this side of the map?"

"That's the third pass. Think it's circling?"

"A big bird takin' a lap, mate. Nothin' more."

"Should we wake the Alpha?"

"Tell 'em what? Dragon took a walk? We ain't on the menu."

Two minutes went by and the guards lapsed back into silence.

A branch snapped in the distance. Her head turned towards the sound. No movement. Just her mind playing tricks.

Without warning, warmth flooded into her chest, spreading through her limbs. A hissing noise followed. She watched, stunned, as the iron that bound her liquefied into hot wax, dripping onto the snow with a sizzle.

That was new. Definitely new. Impossible or not, she was free. Her wolf bristled in her chest. 

Mother, I am about to break my promise to you. I'm sorry.

It was the last thing her mother asked before passing. But this was her one and only chance, and she wasn't going to waste it.

Shift. Run. Don't die. A simple three-point plan.

Legs trembling, she pushed herself to her boots and shifted into a run. White light exploded outward. A small detail she hadn't realized was THAT bright until right now.

"Lying bitch—GET UP!"

"She's got a wolf."

"I can SEE THAT!"

"YOU were supposed to tie her!"

"SHUT UP AND RUN!"

Bones popped, and paws thrummed at her back. Hunting speed.

Not only had she lied about being a runt, she was also attempting an escape. Two crimes against an Alpha in one day. Personal best.

This was her third shift ever. She had zero training in wolf form. And she was being chased by career killers. The odds were exactly as bad as they sounded. 

In a blur of white, she wove through the trees as howls grew louder, closing on her tail.

A column of golden fire slammed down to the earth in front of her. She skidded to a halt, then turned. Before she understood what was happening, the flame split and raced around her from both sides, meeting at her back.

Fucking hell. Today was just full of firsts.

A shadow dropped from the sky, changing from beast to man, then walked through the gold towards her. 

Fight-or-flight unanimously picked flight.

She bolted for the ring of fire, bracing for a sear that never came. Instead of agony, a soothing warmth engulfed her, like sinking into a hot bath.

Dragonfire. On her fur. Not burning. Either she was dead, or the rules of life had just changed. That was a question for tomorrow's Guinevere. 

The fire didn't follow her once she made it through, and she didn't give it a chance to catch up. She sprinted the entire night, her paws frozen. Her wolf was a literal lantern, and if she stopped, a sitting duck rogue-magnet.

The miles blurred into a hazy marathon powered by adrenaline.

It hadn't fully registered that she was back in Lunaris territory until she felt the stares. Wolves in the distance were tracking her.

At least twenty. All familiar. All thought she was a runt.

Brilliant. Fantastic. Truly her finest work. She pivoted, sprinting in the opposite direction.

A forest green wolf chased after her. Her half brother, Cassian. Because of course it would be him. He moved at Alpha speed, closing the gap rapidly.

There was a chance he'd already picked up her scent as it was. If he got close enough, she was done. Five years of hiding a wolf. Blown by her own stupidity.

Her options were "glow in the dark" or "die of hypothermia."

She was going to need a moment to weigh these.

Hypothermia won. She leapt into the half-frozen river, shifting to human form. It was the only way to cover her scent, and it was about as cold as expected. When she forced her head under the surface, every nerve in her body fired at once before flatlining. 

Cassian's paws thundered. More followed.

She counted. One. Two. Three. The paws above grew louder. Four. Five. Her diaphragm spasmed. Six. They passed. She broke the surface, mouth open, pulling air so hard it burned on the way down.

More paws drummed in the near distance. She bolted through the trees in the opposite direction. Her vision narrowed to a dark tunnel and nothing else. Each exhale came out ragged. Too loud.

Panic was steering the ship at this point, and she knew it. It drove her face-first into an unmovable chest that came out of nowhere.

An arm locked around her and a hand covered her mouth before she could scream. Which, she would have, because it definitely scared the living daylights out of her.

His scent hit her next. Pine and something darker underneath. Her wolf, who had been clawing the inside of her ribs, went still.

She looked up trembling. Tall. Broad. Warm. And currently the only thing in this forest not actively trying to murder her. 

...

His heartbeat thudded against her ear. Slow. Calm.

Hers, on the other hand, was trying to crack a rib.

For three full seconds, neither of them moved. She could feel his chest rising against hers, steady as a drum.

He removed the hand covering her mouth and signaled for her to be quiet. 

Her better judgment was somewhere on the forest floor, twelve paces back. She had not bothered to retrieve it.

Keeping one arm around her waist, he gently led her into a cave she would've missed completely because it was tucked behind boulders and looked like a dead end.

When they were fully inside, his other arm went around her too. She was shivering, and in no position to say 'who the fuck are you.' The bar of decency was rock bottom low. 

He felt like warmth wrapped in sunlight, and smelled too damn good to complain.

His thumb traced slow circles on her back. She didn't notice until he stopped abruptly, his entire body stiffening against hers.

Warning sirens should have been blaring in the back of her mind, but they weren't. In fact, her body was full-on leaning into him like she'd known him for years, and her brain was too tired to argue.

The sound of leaves crunching under heavy paws echoed off the boulders, followed by the low, frantic snuffles of a wolf tracking. They were close. Too close.

"If you're found on these lands, they will kill you."

He blinked down at her, opened his mouth, then shut it. She wasn't sure if he was human or had a wolf, but either way, he'd be outnumbered.

The noises grew closer. It was no longer a matter of if, but when they would be discovered. Her heart beat furiously against her ribs. 

The math: let a stranger die who was trying to help her, or go be a problem outside. She was getting alarmingly comfortable with making decisions that looked insane on paper.

"Don't leave this cave until you hear them gone," she whispered, pulling out of his arms.

"Wait."

She didn't.

In a blur, she was outside of the cave, just in time to stop Cassian's wolf who was already there.

The man had a gift for being exactly where she did not want him.

He shifted back to human form. 

"Well, well. Looks like the golden child has a little secret father will be interested in."

He said golden child the way other people said taxaudit.

"Lovely to see you, Cassian. You'll have to be more specific." Her voice was calm.

"Don't play coy. Though I heard you played hero yesterday. This will cancel that out."

Behind him, Tyler Draven approached, shifting back into human form. The Beta's son had always been nice to her. "She is a white wolf. I'll be damned."

"I don't know what you're referring to."

"You've always been a terrible liar, Gwen," Tyler said, smirking. "Too many people saw you."

Stupid. Considering she had lied about her wolf for five years since her first shift, and not one of them had caught it. The fact that the streak ended tonight was a budget issue, not a skill issue.

More wolves closed in around them, shifting as they came.

"Bind her," Cassian ordered with no warmth in his voice. "Should the prisoner attempt flight, the rope becomes silver."

"Riveting dialogue, Cassian. How many times did you practice that one in the mirror? Be honest."

Snickers erupted behind him. Whoops. Usually they didn't laugh.

The gold rose in his eyes the way it always did right before he proved he was his father's son. He stepped forward and didn't hesitate, backhanding her hard enough that she stumbled and tasted copper.

The laughter died like a snuffed torch. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

Her hand found her lip. When she pulled it away, her fingers came back red. Her eyes watered, briefly, against her will. She swallowed it down, straightened, and faced him head on.

"Cassian," Tyler clipped. "She is just surprised you are threatening silver on her."

A warrior moved towards her with rope. Tyler intercepted him.

"I'll do it." 

She watched, detached, like it was happening to someone else, as rope wrapped around her wrists, which were still raw from the silver the night before.

Tyler wouldn't meet her eyes until he finished and was back at Cassian's side.

"Why are you wet and half dressed?" Cassian demanded.

"I decided to go for a swim for fun in the middle of winter, Cassian." Her voice was dry as sand. 

Cassian's brows knit. He seemed to not understand if she was serious or not.

"Careful not to think too hard. You'll hurt yourself."

More snickers came. Again, not what she intended. They never laughed at her jokes. This was new.

He moved to backhand her again, but Tyler stepped in between, eyes on her face. Either he was pretending not to notice or just oblivious. She wasn't sure.

He touched her hair, which was frozen. She blinked at him in surprise. He'd never touched her before.

Then he sniffed.

"Who touched you?" 

Her insides twisted. The whole point of her stepping out was so the hiding caveman wouldn't be brutally slaughtered. 

"You're going to have to be more specific. The part before or after I traded myself to save three-hundred people in a throne room."

Cassian gave a dark, unimpressed laugh. "Father was preparing to send an army to retrieve you. He'll be disappointed that his little prized jewel has been keeping a secret. Won't he now?"

She opened her mouth to respond, but a cough came instead. Followed by a wave of dizziness. Maybe hypothermia was catching up, or it was sheer exhaustion. She wasn't sure. All she knew was the ground came up to meet her.

The last thing she heard was Tyler and Cassian's muffled voices.

✦✦✦

"Princess. Wake up. Please."

The please was what did it.

Guinevere cracked her eyes open to her own bed, her own room, and an omega at her side. Warm. No chains. No ropes. 

Civilization. She had missed it.

"Princess, your father requested to see you immediately. And to wear this," the omega said.

A white dress with gold accents. It was beautiful, and expensive.

That meant her father needed her for something or to impress someone. The 'I have a daughter and I love her very much, please notice' starter pack.

The bath was hot enough to sting. Mary worked oil into her hair with hands that had been doing this since Gwen was twelve. The slow drag of the comb. The warm steam. The smell of her own skin coming back to her after twelve hours of cold and silver and forest.

Her father had ordered her to be made beautiful in a very specific way, and she did not want to know yet why.

There was a knock on her door, and a crown was delivered to her. She raised her eyebrows. Whoever was downstairs was important enough for the full costume. 

She glanced at the omega who was watching her.

Mary was wearing the face of a woman with bad news she had been told not to share. "What you did in that throne room for us… I just want you to know that it was the bravest thing I've ever seen. And we support you."

Guinevere blinked, momentarily stunned by her words. Mary had always been kind, but people usually distanced themselves from her. 

"Thank you, Mary. How worried should I be?" She flashed a grin. "On a scale from one to should-I-escape-through-the-window, what are we working with here?"

Mary laughed at that, then lowered her voice. "I don't think he'll harm you, Princess. But there are visitors here and I'm not sure of the nature."

"Visitors?"

Plural. Always worse when it was plural.

"Yes, Princess. You've been out for twelve hours."

Guinevere's stomach dropped. Twelve hours wasn't a nap. That was a coma with branding.

"How many visitors, Mary?"

Mary did not answer right away, which was its own kind of answer.

"Enough that your father had the entire west wing cleared, Princess. And the east."

...

Two hundred heads turned the second she stepped through the doors. Ten of them wore crowns.

She recognized about half. Alphas she had played princess for in the past. Some of their territories were nowhere near Lunaris.

The room did a collective exhale, and conversations picked back up. 

"Stonehowl wanted her for his son. Can you blame him?" 

"Unique, I'll give her that. Strange hair."

"The Beta's son carried her in this morning. Poor thing."

She tuned the rest out, scanning for her father. The odds of Cassian or Tyler not mentioning her wolf were zero. The damage was done. Her plan was to claim that it was her first shift if it came up. Given she'd woken up in her bed and not in chains, and was now playing princess instead of playing prisoner, there was a chance her father considered it a headache not worth addressing.

He stood at the head of the hall with his arm around Maria, and was deep in conversation with an Alpha she didn't recognize.

Maria caught her eye, and Guinevere gave a small smile. An alliance formed over shared trauma. Efficient. Unexpected. She had a feeling she was going to need every favor in the building before the night was over.

Her father turned. Showtime.

"Daughter, you are looking better." 

Every eye turned in their direction. The king approached her, offering a practiced smile and a hug.

She had been performing warmth with this man her entire life. They were both very good at it. 

"Father. You'll embarrass me in front of kings."

There were some low chuckles.

"Come, let us begin."

Those words settled like ice in her stomach.

She took her seat next to Cassian, Tyler on her other side. The seating arrangement of her nightmares. Dinner theater at its finest.

Cassian sat stiff, eyes forward. Silent. Tragic.

Tyler, on the other hand, was looking at her like a man who had recently discovered she existed and was deeply confused about the timing. He had grown up with her. And he had tied her wrists less than twelve hours ago. So there was that.

His eyes landed on her throat. Then the place where her dress stopped at her breasts. Then her mouth. Her lip was bruised still. Swollen. Probably her best feature in this lighting. Lovely that he noticed.

The double doors of the hall opened, and a man entered whom she didn't recognize. The night was already off to a rich start.

STRANGER NUMBER ONE: 

He was definitely an Alpha, flanked by three. All looked important. Or at least expensive.

"Ah, the guest of honor. King Shadowfell."

The room went very still.

The most powerful man on the entire continent of Nyros, ruler of the largest pack and the most territories, was quite young. Attractive. 

He froze mid-step, pupils dilating, and stared at Guinevere like the rest of the room didn't exist. Two hundred pairs of eyes darted between them.

Heat rose low in her body. One she had never felt before and had no business feeling here and now. Her wolf stirred, lifting its head for the first time since the forest.

She blinked, momentarily disoriented, then forced her gaze away first.

He shook his head, seeming to also be pulling himself out of that. Whatever that was. Then he glanced at her father, jaw tight.

"Renwick. Thank you for the invitation. I don't usually accept them."

"A man who declines every invitation and then accepts mine. I'm flattered. Or should I be curious?"

Shadowfell let the silence sit for three seconds longer than was comfortable.

"The night is young. We'll find out."

He and his entourage sat at the second most important table in the room, directly across from the dais. Close enough that avoiding eye contact would take effort.

"Unbelievable," Cassian muttered into his goblet.

"You'll survive," she shot back under her breath.

Cassian drained half his glass in one pull, still refusing to look at her. "Shut the fuck up. If it were up to me, you'd be in silver, not silk."

"Half your wine in one go and a death threat before the first course. Pacing, Cassian."

"A bitch who doesn't know how to address an Alpha. Another reason you deserve silver."

"I'm sorry, did you just refer to yourself as an Alpha?"

It was at that moment she realized Shadowfell had been watching. She could feel his eyes without needing to look.

The same heat from a minute ago slammed into her so violently that the blood rushing to her ears muffled Cassian's voice. Alarm bells weren't ringing, they were full-on clanging in her mind.

The doors cracked open again.

STRANGER NUMBER TWO:

Another Alpha walked in, Beta and Gamma at his side. At least that's what she assumed.

"Lord Raventhorn from Velkaris." The entire hall turned to stone. Some jaws dropped.

Velkaris. The dragon continent.

Entirely different world. No wolves. A magic system. Different everything. And yet here Lord Raventhorn was entering her father's hall.

The doors had barely shut behind him before he locked onto her, nostrils flaring.

Red eyes with slits for pupils. They glowed in a way a wolf's would, but he was not shifting. 

He inhaled so hard his chest lifted, then he staggered a half-step.

A rough, stunned laugh scraped out of his throat, followed by one wrecked word. 

"Fuck."

Gods, she hoped he was smelling Cassian and she was just collateral damage, because that man made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Her wolf recoiled so hard it pushed her back against her chair. 

He turned away, then gave Lunaris a nod. 

"Lunaris. You undersold. No, that's generous. You omitted. Significantly."

"If I'd told you what was waiting, you wouldn't have believed it, Soren."

Raventhorn flashed a grin. "Bold of you to assume I believe it now."

"I think you do, Soren."

Her father raised his glass, held Raventhorn's gaze, and drank. The dragon lord watched him for a long second, then laughed.

"I'll give you this, Lunaris. You know how to set a hook. Let's see if you can reel."

Tyler and Cassian exchanged a quick glance that she absolutely saw. For once, the three of them were in agreement. That man was trouble.

The solidarity was short-lived. As soon as the hall resumed conversation, Cassian decided to share his thoughts. This time loud enough for people around them to hear.

"You of all people should not be at a table of kings and dragon lords."

"And yet."

"You think you're so clever, don't you."

"No. You're just the right amount of dumb."

Tyler choked on his wine, coughing. A few snickers followed. She wasn't sure if they were from her response, Cassian's intelligence, or Tyler choking.

She reached for her goblet. A daughter at her father's table reaching for white wine. Innocent. A small motion. But a devastating one that she realized a second too late.

The dress was tight and cut in a way that it lifted her breasts, the low neckline pulling so the inner curves spilled slightly against the silk. 

The room drew in a collective breath.

She took a slow sip, face carefully blank, and set it back down. Again, the silk tightened against the rise of her. Of course it did.

Tyler's gaze dropped to her chest and lingered. His hand stilled on his glass.

Shadowfell's eyes had been on her father. They were no longer on her father. Lord Raventhorn from Velkaris, whoever he was, had not moved. Openly staring at her.

Her father, who had picked the dress, who had ordered her hair half-curled, who had specified the lighting in this hall down to the angle of the candles, took a slow sip of his own wine and said nothing.

The doors opened again, and the entire hall stopped. Three for three.

But at this point the Moon Goddess herself wouldn't have shocked her.

Famous last words. 

STRANGER NUMBER THREE:

The man who entered almost made Guinevere drop her goblet.