I woke up warm, and that was how I knew something was wrong.

Warmth meant I wasn't in the snow. Warmth meant someone had taken me somewhere, and in my experience lately, being taken somewhere by men ended with me out in the cold again.

I kept my eyes shut. I listened.

A fire, popping. Wind against canvas, not stone — a tent, then, a big one. The creak of leather. And breathing. One person, sitting close, very still, the way a hunter sits.

"You're awake," the rough voice said. "Your heart changed."

I opened my eyes.

The man from the snow sat on a low stool a few feet away, forearms on his knees, watching me with those strange silver eyes. He was big the way old trees are big, broad and unbothered. Dark hair cut short. A scar through one eyebrow. He wore black, and on his chest was stitched a crest I didn't recognize — a clawed circle, iron-gray.

"Where am I," I said. Not a question. I didn't have the strength for questions.

"Safe. Which I'd guess is new for you." He nodded at a cup on the floor by the cot. "Drink that. It's just broth. I didn't put anything in it, and before you ask, if I wanted you dead I'd have left you in the snow. You were doing the work for me."

I didn't drink it.

He almost smiled. "Smart."

I sat up slowly. My body ached in every joint, but I was alive, and I was whole, and — my hand went to my stomach before I could stop it.

His eyes followed the movement.

I froze.

"Relax," he said, quieter now. "I won't say it out loud if you don't want me to. But I could smell it on you before I even got you off the ground." He tilted his head. "That's why they threw you out, isn't it. Tainted blood. And you let them believe it rather than tell them you were carrying."

My throat closed.

He'd put it together in one night what I'd spent weeks too afraid to think about. If Blackthorn had known I was pregnant, they wouldn't have exiled me. They'd have kept the child and exiled me. An Alpha's heir belonged to the pack.

I would rather have died in the snow than hand my baby to the people who put me there.

"Who are you," I said.

"Kael." He picked up the cup himself, took a long swallow, and set it back down in front of me. Proof. "Second to the Ironclaw Alpha. We were riding the eastern range when I caught your scent on the wind." He paused. "It's a strange scent, healer. That's the part I can't let go."

"Mira," I said. "Not 'healer.'"

"Mira." He said it like he was filing it somewhere permanent. "All right, Mira. Drink the broth now that you've watched me not die from it. You lost a lot of heat last night. The pup needs you steady."

I drank.

It was the best thing I'd ever tasted, and I hated that, and I drank all of it.

He watched me the whole time, and there was nothing hungry in it, nothing like the way men sometimes looked at me. He watched me the way you watch a problem you haven't solved yet.

"Why help me," I said when the cup was empty. "You don't know me. You could have ridden past. A frozen stranger isn't your concern."

"You're right. She isn't." He took the cup back, set it down. "But a frozen stranger who smells like the most powerful bloodline this continent ever produced — one that's supposed to be extinct — that's the kind of thing a man brings to his Alpha and lets the Alpha decide." His silver eyes didn't leave me. "I'm not a kind man, Mira. I want you to understand that going in. I pulled you out of the snow because of what I smelled, not because of mercy. If you'd smelled like nobody, I'd have said a prayer for you and kept riding."

It should have frightened me. Strangely, it didn't. There was something I trusted in a man who told me exactly why he wasn't to be trusted.

"At least you're honest about it," I said.

"Honest is cheaper than kind and lasts longer." The corner of his mouth moved. "Remember that. You're going to need to tell the difference, where you're going."

It was the best thing I'd ever tasted, and I hated that, and I drank all of it.

Kael watched me the whole time, and there was nothing hungry in it, nothing like the way men sometimes looked at me. He watched me the way you watch a problem you haven't solved yet.

"You said I'm not who they think I am," I said when the cup was empty. "What does that mean."

"It means your scent doesn't match your story." He leaned back. "Orphans smell like nobody. No line. That's actually true, what your pack said — a bloodless wolf reads like still water. But you?" His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared, just slightly. "You read like a bloodline I've smelled exactly once in my life. A long time ago. From a wolf who is about to ask me where the night patrol found a girl with that scent — because it shouldn't exist anymore."

A drum started, somewhere outside. Slow. Deep. Then a horn.

Kael stood, and all the easy stillness went out of him. He became something else, something coiled.

"That's the recall," he said. "He's back early." He looked down at me, and for the first time I saw something cross his face that might have been worry. Not for himself. "Stay behind me when we go in. Don't speak unless he speaks to you. And Mira—"

The tent flap was already being pulled open from outside. Cold air rushed in. Two more wolves in iron-gray stood in the gap, and behind them, the whole camp had gone silent the way Blackthorn's hall had gone silent, except this silence had a different shape. This was the silence of a pack waiting on its Alpha.

"—whatever he says about your blood," Kael finished, low and fast, "it's true. Even if it sounds impossible. Especially then."

One of the wolves at the door spoke.

"The Alpha is dying," he said. "And he's asking for the girl who smells like his dead bloodline. Bring her now."