Chapter 246 Eastern: Klaus's POV

Chapter 246 Eastern: Klaus's POV
The morning after our return, the high mountain air tasted like frost and wet pine.

I stood on the timber platform near the main gate, watching the pack clear snow from the dirt paths.

Down in the courtyard, Zoey was already at work. She had twelve young scouts lined up in a row, teaching them how to string their short bows with wet leather cords so the cold wouldn't snap the wood.

Her hand moved fast, her dark hair pulled back into a tight leather braid. Every time she looked up and caught my eye, a quiet, hot pulse echoed through the bond in my chest.

She wore my father's silver signet ring on her left hand now. The pack knew it. The elders knew it. The North was unified, but peace in these mountains never lasted past the first heavy snowfall.

A loud yell came from the outer watchtower.

"Rider coming!" Bram barked from the high timber wall. "Single mount! He's pushing the horse hard!"

I jumped down off the timber platform, my heavy iron boots sinking into the wet slush. Zoey lowered her bow, her hand dropping automatically to the hilt of the hunting knife at her waist. She walked up to my side as the heavy oak gates creaked open.

A bay gelding stumbled through the archway, its chest lathered in white foam, its nostrils flaring red in the cold air.

The rider collapsed out of the saddle before the horse could even stop. He hit the muddy cobblestones hard, rolling onto his back. It was Eric, one of our best forward scouts stationed three days east at the High Crag border.

His grey wool cloak was slashed to ribbons across his back. Dark, dried blood caked his shoulder, and his face was pale, sunken, and caked with dried sweat and dirt.

"Klaus..." Eric gasped, clutching his wounded shoulder as Valerius ran forward to lift him up. "Alpha..."

"Easy," I said, kneeling beside him on one knee. I pressed my palm flat against his chest to steady his shallow breathing. "You made it to the mountain, Eric. Speak."

"The Eastern Marches..." Eric choked out, coughing up a spittle of thin, dark blood onto the slush. "Lord Vane... he didn't wait for spring."

The name made the air in my lungs go cold.

Lord Vane was the warlord of the Eastern Steppes. Unlike Kaelen, who relied on mercenary spearmen and stone walls, Vane commanded three thousand heavy cavalry—wolf-kin who lived in the saddle and fought with curved iron sabers and composite bows. He was a tyrant who burned every village that refused to pay tribute in horses and silver.

"Vane crossed the Red River?" Zoey asked, her voice dropping into that low, dangerous register she used when a hunt began.

"Three days ago," Eric whispered, his eyes wide with fear. "Two hundred iron-clad riders... they burned the timber mill at the border. They slaughtered the guard post at the pass. Captain Drake... he tried to hold the stone bridge, but they broke his line in ten minutes."

A heavy silence fell over the gatehouse courtyard.

Bram stepped down from the timber rampart, his broad face grim as he wiped his grease-stained hands on his apron. Valerius swore under his breath, his knuckles turning white around his iron spear shaft.

"Did Vane send a message?" I growled, my fingers tightening around the leather strap of my broadsword. "Or did he just come to kill my men?"

Eric reached inside his torn leather vest with a trembling hand. He pulled out a crumpled square of parchment, stained with dark grease and sea salt.

"He left this... nailed to Captain Drake's chest," Eric rasped.

I took the parchment. The ink was thick, dark, and sloppy, written with the point of a dagger.

To the bastard boy in the mountain,
Kaelen was weak. He let you sit in your stone high-seat and pretend to be an Alpha. The Eastern Steppes do not recognize your mountain blood. Yield sixty heavy war horses, five hundred sacks of grain, and the female who wears your ring by the full moon, or I will burn the North Pack to ash and sow your valley with salt.
_Vane_

A dark, primal rage flared in the back of my throat, hot and heavy as molten iron.

My hand clenched around the parchment, crushing it into a tight ball before throwing it into the muddy slush beneath my boot. The bond between Zoey and me hummed with a cold, sharp edge. She didn't need to read the words. She felt my fury through the blood we had shared at the high fire.

"He wants a war," Bram spat, stomping his heavy boot onto the crushed paper. "Let him bring his cavalry up these narrow mountain tracks! We'll gut his horses in the passes!"

"No," Valerius countered, shaking his head. "Vane is not stupid like Kaelen. He won't ride his horses up the high crags. He will cut off our trade roads to the south, starve our lower farming villages, and wait for the snows to trap us up here."

I stood up to my full height, looking over the faces of my pack.

The sixty-five warriors who had marched on the Iron Citadel were tired. Their leather armor was still cut, their bodies still bruised from the tower duel. But their eyes were hard. They looked at me, waiting for their Alpha to speak.

"Vane thinks we are hiding in these rocks because we are afraid," I said, my voice echoing off the high stone archway. "He thinks killing a guard post makes him the master of the valley."

"What are your orders, Alpha?" Bram asked, his hand dropping to the heavy iron battleaxe at his belt.

I turned to Zoey. Her dark eyes were steady, fixed on mine, her face unreadable and hard as mountain granite.

"How fast can your scouts reach the Red River pass?" I asked her.

"Four hours on foot through the high ridges," Zoey answered without hesitation. "We can travel lighter and faster than Vane's heavy riders."

"Take eight hunters," I commanded, my dark eyes burning into hers. "Do not engage his main line. Track their movement. Find where Vane sets his supply camp tonight. If he wants my grain, my horses, and my mate, he will have to fight for every inch of dirt in this valley."

"Consider it done," Zoey said, turning immediately toward her line of young scouts. "Bowers! Quivers and short blades! We move in five minutes!"

I turned back to Valerius and Bram.

"Sound the iron war horn," I ordered, my voice low, dark, and absolute. "Muster every man between sixteen and fifty who can hold an iron spear. We ride east at midnight."

As the deep, roaring blast of my father's war horn shattered the quiet mountain morning, I looked toward the eastern horizon. Dark, heavy storm clouds were gathering over the distant peaks, bringing a fresh wave of snow.

Vane was coming for my pack, my land, and my female.

He was going to find out what happened when an Eastern warlord tried to hunt an Alpha on his own mountain.