Chapter 3

Elara POV

The rough hands of the patrol shoved us through the jagged wooden gates of the Black Moon Outpost. We stumbled into a courtyard of trampled, bloody snow. The air here was thick with the stench of unwashed bodies, woodsmoke, and the suffocating aura of despair.

Before we could even catch our breath, a heavy silence slammed down over the courtyard. It wasn't just the cessation of noise; it was a physical weight.

A man stepped out from the main longhouse. He was draped in a massive black wolf pelt, looking less like a man and more like a god of ice and violence. Kaelen Blackwood. The Alpha of the Black Moon Pack, and the undisputed tyrant of the Frostfang Wilds.

Beside me, Mason and Finn hit their knees with a synchronized thud. My mother whimpered, dragging my broken father down into the snow with her. Their inner wolves were submitting to the sheer, crushing dominance of a Lycan.

But I felt nothing. Being *wolfless* meant I was entirely blind to the pack dynamics and the magical weight of an Alpha's command. I was the only one left standing, shivering in my torn clothes, glaring at the man who held our lives in his hands.

Kaelen's gaze swept over the new arrivals. His eyes were a piercing, unnatural ice-blue, devoid of any warmth or mercy.

"In the Frostfang Wilds, there is only one law," his voice rang out, deep and resonant, cracking through the frigid air like a whip. "Survival of the strongest. The weak are meat for the winter."

He paced slowly, his boots crunching against the ice. "Able-bodied men will report to the black stone quarry at dawn, or hunt the tundra beasts for your rations. Women, the elderly, and the *wolfless* will handle the slop, the hides, and the filth. You earn your keep, or you freeze."

His cold eyes finally landed on my family. He took in my father's vacant stare, my mother's trembling frame, and my own frail, *wolfless* stature. A flicker of absolute dismissal crossed his sharp features. He raised a gloved hand and pointed toward the far edge of the outpost.

"Put the Vance family in the outcast's hovel by the perimeter," he ordered flatly.

My blood ran cold. I had seen that hovel when we were dragged in. It was a rotting pile of splintered wood and torn furs, leaning precariously against the trash heaps. The wind howled straight through its massive gaps. With my father's catatonic state and our starved bodies, assigning us that shelter wasn't a test of strength. It was a slow, agonizing execution. He was intentionally weeding us out.

Kaelen turned his broad back to us, his black pelt swirling, ready to return to his warm, fire-lit quarters.

A hot, reckless fury boiled up from the depths of my chest, overriding my survival instincts. I ducked slightly behind Mason's broad shoulders, my hands balling into fists.

"Sadistic, power-tripping bastard," I whispered through chattering teeth, the words meant only for my brother's back.

Up ahead, the massive Lycan froze.

The pause was microscopic, a mere hesitation in his stride, but the shift in the air was instantaneous. The guards around us stiffened.

Slowly, Kaelen Blackwood turned his head.

His ice-blue eyes cut through the falling snow, bypassing the dozens of cowering wolves, and locked onto me with terrifying precision. My heart seized. *He heard me.* Over the howling wind and the distance, his Lycan hearing had picked up my whisper.

I was pinned under his stare, my lungs forgetting how to draw air. I expected him to order my head severed from my neck. I expected a brutal punishment. But as I stared back, refusing to lower my chin despite the terror clawing at my throat, something strange flickered in his icy gaze. It wasn't rage. It was a dark, calculating scrutiny.

For a long, agonizing second, the rest of the world faded away. There was only the blizzard, the tyrant, and the *wolfless* girl daring to hold his gaze.

Then, the corner of his mouth twitched-a movement so slight I might have imagined it. He didn't say a word. He simply gave me one last, chilling look of warning, turned, and disappeared into the longhouse.

"Move!" a guard barked, shoving Mason hard between the shoulder blades.

Rough hands grabbed us again, dragging us away from the center of the camp. We were pushed toward the perimeter, the stench of the garbage heaps growing stronger until we were thrown to the frozen ground in front of the leaning, skeletal remains of the hovel. The wind shrieked through the rotting planks, carrying the biting promise of a frozen death.