The Wolf of Tremore.She’d wondered what kind of Alpha could command such a name. Now, she thought she might understand.
Perhaps the name had always been waiting for him.
The carriage had barely lurched forward before her ladies-in-waiting resumed their litany of grievances. Oh, the jostling. The cramped space. The poor fare. Did no one care about their delicate constitutions? The jostling. The cramped space. The poor fare.
Over and over.
JingYi tried once. “The journey is long. We must be prudent with time and provisions.”
“If you had a drop of noble blood, you’d understand how hard this is for areallady,” LánYàn snapped.
JingYi gritted her teeth. Words and logic were useless here. She fixed her gaze on the world outside, letting its beauty swallow the small, mean scene in the carriage. The autumn forest blazed in a spectacle of the season. As the setting sun gilded the world, its light fell upon a lake of perfect, still glass. The sight was so immense, so magnificent, that even her tormentors finally fell silent.
Conrad’s shadow crossed her window as he trotted up, smiling.
“We’ll make camp by the Draemir Lake, Your Highness,” he said in Isseric, so her companions could also understand. “The water is clear, fresh. A good place to spend the night.”
JingYi had already begun to nod when LánYàn’s voice cut sharp in Xûengua. “Clear enough for her to see her ugly face in it?”
The others tittered behind their sleeves.
Heat burned in JingYi’s cheeks, but she stayed composed. Conrad’s smile vanished, jaw ticking as his gaze swept the carriage.
“Why do I get the sense they’re laughing at you, Princess?” His voice clipped in Tremesi. “How unbecoming. They ought to be taught respect.”
JingYi hesitated. How could she tell him this had always been her lot?
“They merely have an odd sense of humour,” she said at last. From the hard line of his mouth, she knew he didn’t believe her, but he rode on.
The sky dimmed, the last light of the afternoon gradually swallowed by the shadows. Under the canopy of trees, branches knit together until the path lay in fractured streaks of fading gold. The birds were quiet. Even the wind seemed to withdraw. Only the clatter of wheels and hooves against earth broke the silence, each jolt rocking the carriage’s frame. Her companions shifted beside her, restless in their silks. But for once, they didn’t speak.
Her chest cinched—the old instinct warning her. Her body remembered danger even when her mind stayed calm. Through the leather panels, she watched the narrow slice of the world, veil trembling with each breath.
A sharp whistle tore through the air, followed by the shriek of a horse and a sickening thud as something heavy slammed into the carriage side. JingYi’s blood turned to ice. The conveyance jolted to a violent halt, throwing her against the wall.
Chaos erupted outside, a muffled storm of terror. Steel clashed. Men shouted. The wet crunch of impacts. A battle cry vibrated through the wood of the carriage. JingYi peeked through the opening between the stiff leather curtains. Dark figures surged from the shadows like rats from a ruptured sack.
Above the screams of agony, above the horses whinnying in fear, one word was shouted over and over: “Omega!”
Her stomach dropped.
The women around her exploded into panic. LánYàn went pale. Her teeth clenched. “They’re looking foryou!”
For one frozen heartbeat, JingYi witnessed the calculation in their eyes—a silent, unanimous verdict. The carriage door flew open. A firm shove sent her tumbling out. She hit the ground hard, the impact driving the air from her lungs. Stones scraped her palms and knees. Gasping, she scrambled to her feet and lunged back for the door, grabbing the handle. It didn’t budge. She glimpsed LánYàn’s pale, determined face just before she drew the leather curtains tight.
Darion’s voice ripped through the battlefield. “Protect the princess!”
Heavy boots thudded against the dirt. The Wulfbane men closed in, shields raised, forming a protective wall around her. JingYi pressed her back against the carriage door. The veil, which had been a soft filter, was now a maddening blur—tangling with her frantic breath, smeared with dust, turning the dusk and the flash of steel into a chaotic, indecipherable painting. Shadows, figures, everything was obscured.
She should’ve been safe inside the protective ring of soldiers, but the bandits kept coming. A shadow broke through the formation. A hand seized her wrist. She twisted, not at all like a fighter, but like a healer trying to slip a splint—useless against brute force.
Then, a blur of silver. A sword punched through the bandit’s leather jerkin below the sternum. Angled upward—a trajectory she knew would pierce the diaphragm, the heart. The man made a wet, gurgling sound. She had heard it only once before from a man whose lungs had filled with blood.
Darion ripped his blade free. The corpse collapsed. He barely spared her a glance before turning back to the fight.
“Stay down, princess!” he barked.
JingYi crouched, scrambling away from the chaos. She must get behind the shields?—
