Knotted By The Three Feral Alphas

Lila turned two and a half in the middle of it all. We celebrated in the great hall with roasted boar and honey cakes, the pack laughing and drumming while she ran between tables demanding bites from every plate.

Thorne and Elara watched from their cradles with wide eyes, already learning the sound of their sister’s laugh. I held them close that night after the fires died down, breathing in the milk-and-woodsmoke smell of their hair, and felt the stone in my gut settle heavier. They deserved a mother who finished what she started.

The kings felt it too. Darius grew quieter in the evenings, sharpening his blade longer than necessary. Kane checked the horses every morning like they might bolt if he looked away. Rylan told Lila extra stories at bedtime, voice low and steady, like he was storing up the words for the nights we would be gone. None of them tried to stop me. They knew better. The bond would not let them.

We set the departure for the next new moon, when the passes would still be frozen hard enough for speed but the nights dark enough to hide us.

I stood in the war room one last time with the maps rolled and the poison pouch heavy at my hip. Lila slept down the hall with Thorne and Elara tucked beside her, three small bodies breathing in the same rhythm. The kings waited at the table, cloaks already pinned, eyes on me.

"Three weeks out," I said. "Three weeks back. She dies clean and public so the whole pack knows what happens when you spill blood for power. Then we come home."

Darius met my gaze across the table. "Whatever you want my queen, were all in with you."

The bond hummed between us, steady and fierce. Outside, the wind moved across the ridges carrying the first hint of spring thaw.

The keep slept behind us, full and strong under Garrick’s watch. Lila would wake tomorrow and ask for stories. The twins would nurse and kick and grow.

And somewhere south in Shadowpine, Niskanen would wake one morning and find three wolves at her door who had waited years to finish what she started.

I rolled the last map and tucked it into my saddlebag.

The North was still ours.

But some debts had to be paid in blood before we could truly call it home again.

We left before the keep woke. Four horses, four riders, no banners, no extra guards. The gates creaked open just enough for us to slip through and then shut again behind Garrick’s quiet order.

Lila had fallen asleep against my chest an hour earlier, her small arms tight around my neck while I whispered the same promise I’d given her every night for a week. I would come back. We all would. She had nodded once, thumb in her mouth, and let the wet nurse take her without a fuss.

Thorne and Elara had nursed one last time, their tiny fists curled against my skin like they already knew the difference between goodbye and gone. I had kissed their foreheads and walked out without looking back. Looking back would have broken me.

The trail south started steep and narrow, snow still crusting the high passes even as the lower slopes showed patches of bare rock.

My horse picked her way careful under the extra weight of my packs and the short blade strapped to my thigh. The twins were three months and a half months gone from my body but the memory of their weight sat low in my hips, a dull pull that sharpened with every downward slope.

Darius rode ahead, cloak hood up, eyes on the ridgeline. Kane stayed at my left, close enough that our stirrups brushed when the path narrowed. Rylan took the rear, axe loose across his back, scanning the trees like they might spit out trouble. The rest of our soldiers were behind us and flanking us in a tight formation.

We spoke little the first two days. The bond did the talking for us, a low steady hum that kept the cold from sinking too deep.

At night we camped in the lee of boulders, fire small and smokeless. I took first watch the second evening, knees drawn up under my cloak, blade across my thighs.

Kane sat beside me sharpening his knife with slow strokes that matched the wind in the pines. "I have a question to ask you Elena. Do you think about her much?" he asked without looking up.

"Every time Lila laughs like she owns the world," I said. "Niskanen handed my sister that cup and smiled while she drank it. I want her to feel the same surprise when my blade goes in."

He nodded once. The steel whispered against the stone. "Good. Keep that sharp. Don’t let it turn soft on the ride."

The third day the snow gave way to mud and the mud gave way to the first green shoots pushing through dead grass. We crossed the old border marker at dusk, a weathered stone half buried in ferns.

Shadowpine lay three more days south if the scouts’ drawings held true. My back ached from the saddle but the bond kept me straight.

Rylan rode up beside me as the light faded and offered a strip of dried venison. "Eat and get some strength," he said. "You’re no good to any of us if you fall off the horse."

I took it and chewed slowly while still planning on what to do to Niskanen once I get my hands on her. The meat tasted of smoke and salt and the long miles behind us.

"Our three little wolves. You miss them yet?"

"I miss them more than anything. More like a hole in my chest," he answered. His amber eyes flicked to the south. "But I keep seeing your sister’s face the way you described it. Laughing with that cup in her hand. That’s louder than missing right now."

Darius called a halt at the next stream crossing. We watered the horses and ate cold rations standing up. The bond pulled tighter as the trees grew thicker, the air heavier with the scent of pine and wet earth.

I could almost smell the smoke from Shadowpine’s longhouse on the wind, the same smoke that had filled the hall the night my sister died. My fingers tightened on the reins until the leather bit into my palm.

The fourth day brought rain. It started as a drizzle and turned into a steady downpour that soaked through cloaks and ran cold down necks.

We pushed on anyway, boots squelching, horses steaming. My thighs burned and the ache in my hips sharpened into something that made me grit my teeth on every downward step, but I kept pace.

Kane noticed and moved his horse closer, one gloved hand brushing my knee once in silent check. I nodded. We rode.

By the fifth night the land flattened into the rolling hills that marked the outer reaches of Shadowpine territory.

We made camp in a shallow cave that smelled of old bear and wet stone. Darius built the fire small while Rylan scouted the ridge above us. Kane sat next to me and pressed a waterskin into my hands. "We’re close," he said. "Tomorrow we’ll see the smoke from their walls."

I drank and felt the water settle cold in my stomach. "I keep thinking about the cup and the night it all happened. The way it slipped from her fingers. The sound it made when it hit the dirt. The blood that came from my sister’s mouth. The crowd all turning on me and blaming me for what I didn’t do. I was ten feet away and I couldn’t stop it. I sometimes hate myself when I remember that."

Rylan ducked back into the cave, water dripping from his hood. "No fires or movement ahead. They’re not expecting company." He dropped beside me and bumped my shoulder with his. "You ready for this?"

I looked at the three of them, firelight catching on their faces, and felt the bond lock solid around my ribs. "I’ve been ready since the night she died."

We slept in shifts. I took the last watch before dawn, blade across my knees, listening to the rain drip from the cave mouth.

The twins’ faces flashed behind my eyes every time I blinked. Thorne’s serious stare. Elara’s sudden grin. Lila’s small hand patting my cheek before I left. I kept the images close. They were the reason I was here. They were the reason I would finish it clean.

Morning came gray and damp. We broke camp fast and rode the last stretch with the horses at a trot. The trees thinned. The hills opened. And then Shadowpine appeared below us, smoke curling from the longhouse chimneys, the wooden palisade still standing where I had once called it home.

The place looked smaller than I remembered. Meaner. A few figures moved between the buildings, unaware of the four wolves watching from the ridge.