Nicolas led Lyra from the stockade, the grimy outpost fading behind them into the ruddy twilight of the Fire Country. He had purchased basic supplies a bedroll, rations, a waterskin, and a slender, well-balanced elven shortbow and quiver of arrows that he handed to her without a word. Her fingers closed around the familiar weapon, a flicker of her old self returning to her eyes.
They made camp in the lee of a large basalt formation, a fire crackling between them. The silence was not uncomfortable, but charged. Lyra tended to the fire with an innate grace, her movements economical and precise.
"You have a plan, Master?" she asked, her voice neutral. The title no longer sounded forced, but it was not yet filled with the warmth of true devotion.
"I have a direction," Nicolas corrected, chewing on a strip of dried meat. "South. Deeper into the Fire Country. Grendel mentioned wolf-clan raids along the border. Where there is conflict, there is opportunity. And there are slaves."
Lyra's eyes flickered to him. "You seek more like me?"
"I seek strength," he said, his gaze holding hers. The firelight danced in his dark eyes. "Your strength. The strength of others. I will gather it, and I will weave it into something new." He could feel the warm power within him, a patient predator waiting to be unleashed. "The bond between us, Lyra. You feel it."
It was not a question. She nodded slowly. "I feel... a connection. A warmth. When you used your power on the bandit, and when you offered me your hand... it was the same energy."
"It is my will," Nicolas said simply. "And it is now part of you. It will keep you safe. It will make you stronger. And it will ensure your loyalty." He let the last statement hang in the air, a quiet, unshakable truth.
The next day, they found the trail of destruction. A small trading post, smoldering. The air was thick with the smell of blood and smoke. Bodies, human and wolf-kind, lay scattered. It had been a raid.
Lyra nocked an arrow, her senses alert. "Wolf-clans. Recent. A few hours, no more."
Nicolas surveyed the carnage, his expression cold. This was the reality of Saturn. This was the world of weak and strong that he would remake. "They will have taken captives. Find their trail."
Lyra moved like a ghost, her elven eyes reading the signs in the trampled earth that were invisible to him. "This way. A large group, moving quickly."
They tracked the raiding party for miles into a region of jagged canyons and sputtering geothermal vents. From a high ridge, they looked down upon the wolf-clan's temporary camp.
A dozen brutish warriors, clad in furs and leather, celebrated around a large fire. In a makeshift pen of sharpened stakes, a handful of human captives cowered. But Nicolas's eyes were drawn to one figure apart from the rest.
A wolf-woman, taller than the others, her mane of fiery red hair a stark contrast to the drab surroundings. She was bound in heavy chains, her arms pulled behind her back.
Even from a distance, her posture screamed defiance. She was being berated by a hulking clan warrior, who backhanded her across the face. She barely flinched.
"That one," Nicolas murmured, the warm power inside him stirring with interest. "She is not a captive. She is a prisoner."
"A disgraced warrior," Lyra deduced, her voice a whisper. "Exiled from her own clan. Her strength is obvious, even in chains."
"Then we shall acquire her," Nicolas said. "Create a distraction at the far side of the camp. Draw them away from the prisoners."
Lyra nodded. "As you wish, Master."
She melted into the shadows. Moments later, a cry of alarm rose from the far end of the camp as one of the sentries fell with an elven arrow in his throat. The warriors scrambled, grabbing their axes and rushing toward the threat.
Nicolas moved. He descended the ridge with a focused intensity, his sword in hand. He cut down two warriors who had stayed near the prisoner pen with swift, efficient strikes. The human captives stared at him, their eyes wide with a mixture of hope and terror.
He ignored them and went straight to the chained wolf-woman.
She glared up at him, her golden eyes burning with feral hatred. A trickle of blood ran from her split lip. "Come to finish the job, human?" she snarled, her voice a low growl.
"I am here to offer you a choice," Nicolas said, his voice calm. He could feel her will, a raw, untamed thing, like a storm. It excited the power within him.
"Stay here in chains and die for a clan that has cast you out. Or swear yourself to me, and I will give you a new purpose. A new pack."
She spat at his feet. "I am Kaela Embermane. I serve no one."
Nicolas smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. "We shall see."
He reached out and placed a hand on her forehead. She tried to jerk away, but the chains held her fast.
He unleashed his power.
It was not the gentle offer he had made to Lyra. This was an assault. A torrent of warm, dark energy flooded into Kaela's mind, a psychic battering ram aimed at the fortress of her pride. He felt her fierce resistance, a wall of snarling, independent fury. He did not seek to shatter it. He sought to conquer it, to surround it, to make it his.
Images, sensations, promises flooded her. The thrill of battle at his command. The respect of a true Alpha. The end of loneliness. The warmth of a place by his side. The raw, possessive desire he felt for her strength, her ferocity.
"Submit," his will whispered into her soul. "Your strength is wasted here. Give it to me, and I will make it legend."
Kaela convulsed, a guttural cry tearing from her throat. She fought him with every fiber of her being, her claws extending, scraping uselessly against the stone. The chains rattled violently. But his will was an ocean, and her resistance a stone, worn down, surrounded, submerged.
The fight went out of her. Her body went limp, her head bowing. When she looked up, her golden eyes were changed. The feral hatred was gone, replaced by a blazing, focused intensity. The warmth of his power now burned within her, a new core to her being.
She looked at Nicolas, not as an enemy, but as her Master. The source of her new purpose.
"Master," she breathed, the word a vow.
Nicolas took the key from the belt of a dead warrior and unlocked her chains. They fell away.
Kaela rose to her full height, stretching her powerful muscles. She looked at the returning wolf-warriors, her lips peeling back from her sharp teeth in a savage smile.
"Give me a weapon," she growled.
Nicolas handed her the dead warrior's heavy axe. "Prove your worth."
As Lyra's arrows fell from the ridge, Kaela Embermane, his newest general, charged into her former clansmen with a roar of joyous fury. The forging of his second link was sealed in the blood of his enemies.