She felt them before she saw them.
Three presences hit her like a fist to the sternum.
Elena took the first step and the world narrowed to the three men waiting for her.
Snow crunched under her bare feet. Blood from her wrists dripped onto the white ground in perfect red coins.
The Frostfang gates had already swung shut behind the wagon with a sound like a tomb sealing.
Marek jumped down and bowed low, voice tight. "Tribute from Shadowpine, my kings. The girl who murdered her sister. She's… difficult."
Darius didn't look at him. His gaze stayed on Elena. "Unchain her."
The order cracked like a whip. Tor fumbled with the keys. The silver cuffs fell away. Elena stood on legs that threatened to fold. Blood dripped from her wrists onto the snow. She lifted her chin anyway.
Darius stood in the center. Ice-blue eyes tracked every limp in her walk. The iron crown sat low on his forehead, dark hair brushing the collar of his cloak. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. The bond slammed into her chest like a second heart kicking to life.
Kane flanked him on the left. Scars ran across his knuckles like white lightning. His fingers flexed once, slow, the way a man checks a blade before he uses it. Storm-gray eyes flicked to the torn ear on Marek's head, then back to her mouth. Something that might have been approval tightened the corner of his lips.
Rylan took the right side. Broken nose, reckless grin, amber eyes bright as fresh blood. He looked like he wanted to laugh at the mess she was and fuck her at the same time.
The bond didn't ask permission. It roared.
Elena's skin pulled tight. Heat flooded low in her belly, sharp and wrong and impossible to ignore. She was half-dead from the journey, ribs cracked, lip split, and still her body answered them like it had been waiting twenty-three years for exactly this.
Darius spoke first, voice low enough to rumble in her bones. "Elena Voss. Gamma's daughter. Framed for your sister's murder. Sent north to die."
She stopped three paces away. "They didn't send me to die. They sent me to you. Figured you'd finish the job."
Rylan laughed once, sharp. "She's got teeth."
Kane said nothing. He stepped forward, boots silent on the snow, and caught her chin between two scarred fingers. Tilted her face up. His thumb brushed the split in her lip. The touch burned. The bond flared hotter.
"You bit a man's ear off," he said. Flat. Like he was reading a report.
"He put his hands where they didn't belong."
Kane's thumb pressed harder. Pain flared, but she didn't pull away. His eyes darkened. "Good."
Darius moved then. One step and he filled the space between them. Pine and blood and cold metal rolled off him. He leaned in until his breath brushed her ear. "Inside. Now."
The great hall doors opened. Warmth and torchlight spilled out. Elena walked between them because the bond left her no choice. Her legs shook but she kept her head up. The long tables on either side were empty. Only a handful of wolves watched from the shadows, eyes glowing. They knew what this was.
The brothers didn't sit her at the table. They walked her straight through to the wide stone stairs at the back. No one spoke. The only sounds were boots on flagstone and the wet drip of blood from her wrists.
At the top landing Darius stopped. He turned, caught her by the waist, and lifted her like she weighed nothing. Her back hit the wall. His body pinned her there. Kane and Rylan closed in on either side.
"You smell like fear and rage and us," Darius said against her throat. His teeth scraped the skin there. "The curse has been eating us alive for twenty years. Six months left before we turn rogue and burn the North to ash. You're the only thing that stops it."
Elena's breath hitched. "I didn't ask for this."
Rylan's hand slid up her thigh, under the torn dress. "Doesn't matter. The bond already chose."
Kane's fingers found the back of her neck, thumb pressing the knot of tension there. "Fight if you want. It won't change what happens tonight."
The first real wave of heat crashed over her. Not gentle. Not kind. It felt like her blood had turned to molten silver. Her hips jerked against Darius without her permission. A low sound tore out of her throat.
Darius smiled against her skin. It wasn't kind either. "Chambers. Now."
They carried her the rest of the way. Three sets of hands, three different grips, all of them sure.
The royal chambers took up the entire north wing. Massive bed piled with furs. Fire roaring in a hearth big enough to roast a deer. Windows looking out over the frozen ridges where the howls had come from.
They set her down on the rug in front of the fire. Elena's knees hit the wolf pelts. She stayed there, breathing hard, while they circled her.
Darius shed his cloak first. Then his shirt. Scars crossed his chest like a map of every war he'd won.
Kane followed, revealing the knife sheath strapped to his ribs.
Rylan stripped laughing, the sound low and hungry.
Elena's mouth went dry.
The bond screamed at her to open her legs, to bare her throat, to give them everything. The human part of her, the part that had just bitten a man's ear off rather than break, wanted to make them earn it.
She lifted her chin. "If you want me, you take me bloody and pissed off. I'm not some meek tribute."
Darius dropped to his knees in front of her. Ice-blue eyes locked on hers. "Good. We don't want meek."
His hand slid between her thighs. Two fingers pushed inside her without warning. She gasped. The stretch burned. The bond lit up like wildfire.
Kane knelt behind her, mouth at the back of her neck.
Rylan took her left wrist and licked the blood from it like it was wine.
The night had only just started...