Oma won’t allow that to happen.
I gasp when the spirits release me.
Oma is still watching me with her usual piercing stare, but I can sense that she’s pleased with me. “Did you see?”
I nod because even though I didn’t see the vision clearly, I heard the message, loud and clear.
“Then you know why I summoned the Warden. You may never speak of this night.” The look she gives me tells me death would be my reward if I do.
I bow my head. “You know I won’t.” Even though my head swims with all the secrets. The false heir. The wolf with no ears.
The destruction of the Moonborn and probably our entire pack.
“Good. Go to bed.”
I untuck my legs and stand, feeling the pins and needles attack my sleeping feet. I curtsey. “Goodnight, Oma.”
She rests her hand on the top of my head, sending a moon blessing down through my crown. “Sleep.”
I rush out of the room, running through the dark corridors to reach the stairs to the dim tower where they make me stay.
I crawl into bed without brushing my teeth, trying to ignore the whispering voices warning me of the wolf with no ears who would destroy us all.
Chapter One
10 Years Later
Aster
“The alpha requested your presence in the throne room.” Aiden’s errand boy, Sam, a fifteen-year-old wolf shifter molded into a super-servant, looms on gangly legs in the doorway to my chambers.
I stand to follow as ordered.
The throne room. Eye roll.
Because that’s not pretentious.
Aiden uses all the drama and theater of the best cult leaders, following in his father’s footsteps. He rarely subjects me to a big show. I’ve lived in this mansion since I was ten. I am mostly ignored or treated like furniture, which is the way I prefer it.
I drape myself in a white outer robe and go to the mansion’s largest room, where Aiden holds court when he wants to invoke the majesty of the alpha.
I can almost hear Oma scoffing, foolish pup.
At times like this, I’m reminded that I’m the only one who knows that Aiden killed his own father. Not only that, I know something he doesn’t—that he’s not truly the firstborn. If I wanted, I could use this knowledge to challenge Aiden’s rule.
These are dangerous thoughts, but being pack seeress is a dangerous job.
Secrets are power. Aiden knows this.
That’s why he hates me. He doesn’t like anyone having power but him.
With its stone floors and arching beams, the throne room is almost medieval. It stinks like blood. As I walk in, my gut twists. Odin used to deal out his worst punishments here, in full view of the top wolves of the pack.
Today, it’s only me and Aiden. And the Warden. I walk in just as Aiden’s dismissing him. I try not to breathe too deeply, but I still sense his oily gray aura, a putrid fog that stinks like rotting bones. Of all the Adalwulf wolves, his aura is the most tainted. And that’s saying something.
Behind him is another wolf, a thin white woman dressed in the robes of an acolyte. I recognize her narrow face and long brown hair from my childhood days in Moonhollow. Vera, I think her name was. She scurries to follow the Warden out a side door, and when I glimpse her aura, it seems just as tainted as his. Who knows how he’s used and abused her.
As he’s leaving, the Warden pauses to shoot me a disdainful look, and I ignore him. He’s not a threat to me right now. I know enough of his secrets to destroy him.
