"Let every collar in this square remember what freedom costs. If you run, you will be caught. There is no mercy."
Dexmon's blood ran cold.
CRACK.
A girl screamed. A sound that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Dexmon shoved through the crowd, but his hands passed through them like a ghost.
She was fifteen. Maybe younger. Her wrists were bound to a wooden post in the center of the square. Her shirt was torn down the back, exposing a spine he could count every vertebra of.
A man stood behind her, whip in hand, carrying the kind of calm that comes from repetition.
CRACK.
A strangled cry tore from her throat, high and thin, bitten off at the end because she was trying and failing to hold it. Her body jerked against the post.
At the same time, pain lashed through Dexmon's back. His jaw locked and his vision went red at the edges.
The whip came down again across the same spot. Her legs buckled and the ropes at her wrists were the only thing holding her upright. Blood ran in thin rivers down her back, pooling in the waistband.
A woman in the crowd turned away, and a man pulled his daughter's face into his hip so she couldn't see.
Nobody stopped it.
CRACK.
Her scream cut off into a wet, choking gasp.
At thirty lashes, her head lolled to the side and her eyes were open but vacant. Gone. Wherever she was, it was far from this square.
At thirty-eight, the man paused. Wiped his brow. Took a drink of water.
Resumed.
Thirty-nine. Forty.
The ropes were cut and she dropped face first into the cobblestones, arms useless, back a landscape of flesh and muscle.
Nobody picked her up.
Dexmon had fallen to his knees watching. His hands were on the ground, pressing into cobblestones that weren't real, and every instinct in his body was screaming at him to pick her up and carry her out of this, and he couldn't.
She lay in the street for a long time before a redheaded girl ran out to her sobbing.
A man followed. "Elara, boiled water and clean linen. Now."
The whipping square vanished. What replaced it made Dexmon wish for it back.
A white-haired girl hung from the ceiling by her wrists, silver chains coiled around her torso. Then she was curled up on the stone in the same windowless cell. Silver cuffs eating into her wrists. A collar. She wasn't moving. It didn't look like she was even breathing.
"I'm going to find you. I swear to the gods, I'm going to find you." Dexmon tried to break the cuffs, but his hands refused to exist in this place.
He tried again, harder, like force could make a dream obey. It couldn't. That's when he caught the engraving on the silver. PROPERTY OF VIREMONT.
Before the name could settle, the cell dissolved into a room. She was eighteen now, lying on a bed and looking better than she had in the cell.
A man entered. "Third time runners are executed, Serena. Are you sure?"
"What are they going to take from me? You can't execute someone who stopped being alive a year ago."
Dexmon sat bolt upright in bed, chest heaving, hands shaking. The dream dissolved the second he reached for it, leaving nothing but a sick feeling in his chest and the ghost of a sound he couldn't place.
He couldn't remember any of it. It pissed him off more than the nightmare itself.
Unable to fall back asleep, he threw on clothes and headed outside.
The prince shifted into a black wolf and took off. A run would fix what thinking couldn't.
✦✦✦
"Viremont's paying a fortune for—"
Serena's boot found his groin before he finished his sentence. His voice went up three octaves, then he folded in on himself.
Conversation over.
Another rogue dropped from a tree. "Well, well. What do we have here?"
She gave him a flat, unimpressed look. "Never heard that one before. Original."
"You know, Silverveil, third-time runners don't get quick deaths. He'll make the whole pack watch," he said, lunging towards her.
She introduced her knee to his future children, and he discovered religion on the way down.
Two down.
Only a small army to go.
That's when she saw Elara, who stood wide-eyed and shaking, pressed against a tree. Serena would make damn sure the girl didn't die today. A year in silver may have killed her own wolf, but Elara's was still whole.
She snatched a sword from one of the rogues cupping himself on the ground. It was heavy, unbalanced, and the grip was trash, but free was free.
"Shift and run," she ordered, anchoring herself between Elara and the threat. "Now."
Elara shifted mid-step, paws hitting the ground in a sprint.
More emerged from the trees, blades drawn, chains hanging from their gloved hands.
"Fine," she breathed. "Come earn it."
"Fifteen of us and one of you, sweetheart," the largest rogue called. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."
Serena needed to stall long enough for Elara to get a head start, and long enough to come up with a plan, which she absolutely did not have.
"Correction," she shot back. "Thirteen. Two of your men are unconscious. But sure."
She raised her blade and rolled her neck once, like she knew what she was doing and this was a tedious exercise. It was not, and she definitely did not.
"KILL THE BITCH!" the largest one shouted.
None of his men moved. Their eyes darted between the two on the ground, and the sword in Serena's hand.
"With respect, sir, I'd rather fuck a cactus."
"FINE. Get the redhead friend then."
Every rogue turned towards Elara's trail. Serena's stomach dropped.
"Hey, assholes." She drove her sword into the ground and clapped once.
Their heads swiveled back towards her as one. That worked significantly better than she expected.
"Focus. I'm the bounty, and frankly, you are the dumbest rogues I've ever met." The words came out with more attitude than she intended. Every eye in the clearing narrowed.
Whoops.
They charged. Serena bolted, dignity abandoned. Shifts sounded behind her. Paws drummed the ground in pursuit.
A tree root caught her foot and she face-planted into the dirt.
"Motherfuck—"
✦✦✦
Miles away, a massive black wolf skidded to a sudden stop, head snapping up. A scent struck him like a battering ram.
His pulse thundered in his ears, every sense sharpening to a razor point.
It smelled like pine, moonfire, and something painfully familiar. Like something he had lost and never stopped searching for.
Aegon: Run to it. Now.
Dexmon didn't need to be told twice, his wolf's desperation echoing his own.
He streaked towards it at Alpha speed, bursting into a clearing moments later. Rogues were shifting with silver chains in hand.
His paws stopped working the instant he saw the source of the scent. His entire body screamed one word he didn't dare say.
Aegon: Why are we stopping. Why are we STOPPING.
Thick white hair was plastered to her face, the rest shoved into the collar of her shirt. Even from a distance, her green eyes were striking. The dark impulse to prop her up on all fours and dominate her burned so hot, he almost shifted back on the spot.
Then the rest of it registered. Her clothes were soaked in blood. The sword she held looked too heavy for her wrists. She was surrounded on all sides, back against a tree.
There was zero chance she could take them. But instead of cowering, she squared up to face them head-on.
Behind her back, a rogue wolf dove with a killing trajectory. Dexmon leapt over her head, colliding with him midair, and ripped his throat out. He planted himself in front of her, teeth bared, a wall of black fur and bad intentions.
Then he hit the rest in a blur. His jaws closed around another throat, then a third. Blood, hot and copper, flooded his mouth. He didn't care.
Aegon: On our left. Behind us. Focus. FOCUS. Stop smelling her.
Dexmon: Helpful. Truly.
She watched him with wide eyes, like she didn't believe what she was seeing. Normally, he would have introduced himself, but they were in the middle of an ambush so that was put on hold.
More shifts and steel flashed.
Serena's chest did something warm and stupid that she immediately ignored. The wolf fought like she was his to protect, which was insane because they'd never met.
A blade arced towards the black wolf's neck in his blindspot. She had exactly half a second to register that this was a terrible idea. But some mix of instinct, gratitude, and stupidity shoved her forward. A holy trinity of bad decisions.
She stepped into the strike meant for him and the sword drove into her side.
Every nerve ending in her body lit on fire. She gritted her teeth, refusing to scream.
The wolf snarled as she fell to her knees.
In the same instant, pain carved through him too, so hard that he staggered.
Reinforcements flooded the clearing, cutting down every remaining rogue. Those who tried to run were hunted. No survivors. No mercy.
Dexmon shifted as she pitched forward, hands replacing fur just in time to catch her.
For one suspended second their eyes locked and something hot and electric shot straight into his hardening cock. The urge to spread her legs and thrust inside of her was so strong his hands trembled.
He needed a cold shower and a priest because this was supposed to be a rescue.
Then his vision tunneled to the pulse on her neck. He hadn't realized he'd leaned down to her neck or that his fangs had elongated on their own until they grazed her skin. He stiffened, drawing his head back, and swallowed the instinct like poison.
Her expression said, very clearly, What the fuck.
His said, less clearly, If you could forget the last four seconds, that would be great.
This was new. He was the most pursued male in Skardos and she was looking at him like he'd just done something deeply weird. Which, to be fair, he had.
Before he could say anything out loud, her eyes fluttered closed. Hot blood pooled from her side, soaking his shirt.
"Fuck."
His lieutenant crouched beside a dead rogue and pulled a rolled bounty notice from the body's vest. The number on it made him read it twice. "Whoever she is, someone wanted her badly."
Dexmon's wolf whispered a single word in his mind, but he already knew it.
Aegon: Mate.
And she was dying in his arms.