The Rogue Who Woke the Royal Dead

The stranger caught the basket before it hit the ground.

His eyes lifted to mine, silver-gray and sharply alert. He wore a dark coat, and strength moved under the fabric when he straightened. Not the swollen strength of men who enjoyed frightening weaker wolves. His power was quiet, dense, impossible to ignore.

My body recognized him before my mind did. Heat unfurled low in my stomach. My pulse jumped beneath my jaw, and every new sense my wolf possessed filled with him—cedar, clean sweat, leather, and the electric scent of an approaching storm.

Mine, she repeated, louder.

No. Men did not belong to me. Men hurt me, owned me, locked me away. I belonged to myself now.

I backed into Alaric’s tomb.

The stranger noticed. His gaze dropped to my bare feet, my torn clothes, and the claw marks along my arms. The hard line of his mouth changed.

“My grandfather said there was a starving girl here.”

Alaric appeared beside him. “I said an irritating thief had invaded my eternal peace.”

“You called her a starving girl six times,” Aunt Maeve said.

The man could not hear them. His eyes remained on me.

“I’m Barrett.” He lowered the baskets rather than approaching. “I brought food.”

His nostrils flared slightly. My scent must have reached him too—rain, fear, and the shame of being caught in such a pathetic state.

I was grateful to him, but the living werewolf before me still filled me with a quiet dread. He caught my tension and stepped back, giving me room.

I waited until he moved several paces away, then knelt beside the basket. Broth steamed inside a sealed jar. There were eggs, roasted potatoes, sliced meat, and soft rolls. Too much. More than Mira had allowed me in a week.

“Slowly,” Barrett warned when I grabbed a roll.

I swallowed hard, my eyes betraying my hunger.

One corner of his mouth moved. “Or don’t.”

I ate too quickly. The broth burned my tongue, but warmth spread down my throat, loosening the knot in my chest. Barrett pretended to study the tombs while I swallowed like an animal.

That kindness warmed me.

Eating strengthened my senses by the minute. I could separate every smell in the damp air: fox tracks beneath the wall, moss drinking rain from stone, Barrett's leather gloves, and the living heat beneath his skin. My wolf kept circling the same fact. This male smelled right. Not safe exactly—an Alpha could never smell harmless—but familiar in a way that made my body ache.

I hated the ache. Need had always been a weapon others used against me. Hunger made me steal. Cold made me obey. Now the mate pull wanted to turn desire into another chain. I dug my nails into my palms and promised myself that even fate would have to ask permission.

A sharp female cry cut through the trees.

Barrett turned. So did I.

“Leave me alone,” a woman snapped beyond the northern row of tombs.

A male laugh answered. “Why come without guards if you don’t want company?”

Barrett ran. I followed before I could think.

We found a young woman backed against an angel-shaped monument. Her copper hair had come loose from its braid. Three males surrounded her, using their bodies to block every escape. Their scents were sour with ale, excitement, and the ugly thrill of holding power over someone.

One had his hand around her wrist.

“Let her go,” Barrett said.

The men froze. Fear flashed across their faces, but the largest recovered quickly.

“We were only talking.”

“She said no,” I told him.

He looked at my rags and laughed. “Did someone’s kennel lose a bitch?”

My wolf surged against my skin.

The world sharpened. I smelled the blood moving beneath his neck. Hunger transformed into a different urge—the need to bite, protect, punish.

“Behind you!” a dead soldier shouted from his grave.

I ducked. A fist passed over my head. I drove my shoulder into the attacker’s stomach, but starvation had stolen most of my strength. He caught my hair and yanked.

Pain flashed white.

Barrett’s roar shook dust from the monuments.

Alpha power crashed over the cemetery. Two males dropped to their knees. The one holding me fought it, perhaps too drunk to understand his danger.

Aunt Maeve pointed frantically. “His left knee was injured. Strike there.”

I kicked the side of his left knee.

He screamed and released me.

The copper-haired woman twisted free and drove her elbow into her captor’s nose. Blood sprayed. She stared at it, then at me.

“Did I do that?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful.” She hit him again.

Barrett seized the third male by his collar and threw him into the grass. His eyes had turned completely silver, his canines long. Rage poured from him in hot waves, carrying the scent of smoke.

The protective fury should have terrified me. Instead, my wolf pressed toward it. My body answered his power with a tremor that was not fear.

Barrett looked at the hand still tangled in my hair.

“Touch her again,” he told the injured male softly, “and you will lose the hand.”

My heartbeat stumbled.

The men fled as soon as he released his command. The copper-haired woman watched them go, then faced me.

“You’re bleeding.”

Only then did I feel the cut on my shoulder. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing is not supposed to drip.” She removed her cloak and wrapped it around me. Her scent was orange blossom, steel, and royal confidence. “I’m Sera.”

“Lyra.”

She looked me over. Anger replaced her smile. “Who did this to you?”

“I fell.”

“Repeatedly? Onto a whip?”

I pulled the cloak closed.

Barrett came nearer. The moment his fingers brushed my uninjured shoulder, a shock snapped between us. He inhaled hard. His pupils expanded until only a thin silver ring remained.

The air filled with the rich scent of his arousal, controlled but unmistakable to my wolf.

My face burned.

He snatched his hand back. “Sorry.”

Sera looked between us with widening eyes. “Oh.”

“Don’t,” Barrett warned.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face did.”

For the first time in weeks, laughter threatened me. It felt wrong with blood on my skin.

Sera’s humor faded when my knees shook. “You’re coming with me.”

“But you don’t know me.”

“You saved me before you knew my name. That makes us even.”

Barrett reached for me again, slower this time. “There’s a healer nearby.”

Alaric’s voice hissed from behind him. “Careful, girl. Royals build beautiful cages.”

I recoiled so violently that Barrett stopped.

“I can walk.”

I made it three steps.

The cemetery tilted. Strong arms caught me before the ground did. Barrett’s chest was hot against my cheek, his heart pounding fast. His scent wrapped around me, waking instincts that had been drugged and starved for years. My wolf wanted to rub against him, to mark my face along his throat, to find out whether his skin tasted like smoke.

I hated her for wanting anything.

“Put me down,” I whispered.

“As soon as you can stand.”

Sera touched my tangled hair. “Bring her home, Barrett.”

Home.

The word cracked something inside me.

“No cages,” I said, fighting darkness. “Promise.”

Barrett’s hold tightened, enough to keep me from falling. “No cages.”

Behind him, Alaric folded his spectral arms.

“Finally,” he muttered. “Someone is carrying the stubborn creature.”

As the world went black, I heard him add, very quietly, “Don’t drop my girl.”