Page 136 of The SnowFang Storm

She shook her head. “No, no, he’s not. He might not even be a bastard.”

The soft confession tore at my heartstrings. “You weren’t sure.”

She stared into the fire, smelling of a tangled knot of feelings. “Not at the time. I think he was, though.”

“Do you miss him?” I risked asking.

She took another moment. “Part of me does, but I can never forgive him for what he did to my son, and I do love Garrett. He will tell you love is a verb. He’s right. The matebond is a noun, but love is a verb.”

I liked that.

“Dinner in a bit.” She headed into the foyer and shouted the same thing up the stairs. And woe be to anyone who was late to dinner.

Sterling returned, phone in hand and laptop tucked under his arm, skimming through emails with his usual mild, thoughtful frown.

“Something wrong?” I asked, glad for a change of topic to something familiar: impending doom and Today’s Featured Disaster.

“Kyle sent me a text strongly suggesting we reconsider. It leeched menace.” He sounded amused more than troubled.

“Did he include some knife emojis for clarity?”

He chuckled and tossed his phone onto the couch cushion.

“He’s probably insulted,” I said. Kyle had made us an excellent offer, aside from the world domination master plan hidden in the fine print. If he honestly had no idea about the problem brewing up in FrostFur, of course he’d been insulted, and if he did know, he was probably pissed at being thwarted. “Especially if he thinks he was doing us a favor with the wanderers.”

“I told him to send me a bill.”

I chuckled. “He probably bit through his phone.”

Sterling set his laptop down. “Probably. More to the point, I am shocked absolutely nothing from Alaska has leaked to him, and it doesn’t seem like AmberHowl is prowling either. You’re right. Information does not travel far, nor fast.”

“A species who survives on secrecy tends to be very good at secrets. It’s not like word can’t travel fast, it just doesn’t get loose unless a gate is left open.” Exhibit A: Daniel telling everyone I was Unwanted.

He sat down on the couch and extended his hand to me. “Everyone tells us slices of truth, but they don’t talk to anyone else either. We’re the rook. We can be anywhere on the board in a single move. What if we have the advantage? And I don’t mean money. Because what happened in Alaska did not go to plan for anyone.”

I snuggled next to him on the couch and tucked my toes under his thigh. The advantage right now was the board was in disarray. Alan had put on a good show to FrostFur, but he had to be pissed he’d have to deal with Sterling in public come summer. If Sterling lasted more than thirty seconds, it’d be a huge ding for Alan’s prestige.

I rested my cheek on his shoulder. He stroked my hair.

A plan unfolded in my brain. “I have a thought.”

“About what?”

“Your duel with Alan,” I said, trying to keep the anxious, eager fluttering of hope under control.

“I’m not looking to back out,” Sterling said flatly.

“No, of course not! I mean training for your duel.”

There was no way for Sterling to acquire Alan’s lifetime of war-form training and experience in a few months. But Sterling had an edge Alan didn’t. Sterling had been reduced to bones and ash. He’d been the hungry pup hunting rats to eat. Sterling no longer feared even silver itself.

There were rare warriors with a force of will so powerful that it itself was a weapon. You will not break me. I will not be defeated. I will break you. You will be broken. It cracked the opponent’s mind and entered their system like a fast-acting virus. First, they’d get flustered, followed by bewilderment, then mistakes, more confusion, and it’d all conclude with fervent wishes it’d just be over. The mistakes would start, the reactions slowed, the will to fight was broken.

It was astonishing to see, and could not be acquired or trained, only honed. The handful of times I had seen such fights, the other warrior had never really been the same. The people watching weren’t really the same, even we had felt the intensity.

If Sterling managed to not get skewered in the first two minutes, he might be able to grind Alan to a draw. Alpha Sterling of SnowFang fighting Alpha Alan of FrostFur to a draw was just as good as popping off his head and turning Alan’s claws into toothpicks.

Alan had to beat Sterling—and the harder and longer the fight Sterling put up, the more he drained from Alan in every sense. It didn’t have to be pretty. It just had to work.

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