Chapter 2

Hermina Montgomery POV:

The carriage jerked to a violent halt amidst the driver's harsh shouts, throwing my torso slightly forward before I steadied myself against the wooden wall and stood up.

The driver wrenched the iron door open from the outside. Freezing rain blew into the cabin, soaking the hem of my coarse cloak.

Keeping my head down, I stepped out. My boots landed on obsidian flagstones slick with mud and rainwater. Before me towered Carlisle Castle, its jagged black spires piercing the thunderclouds like a giant beast crouching in the storm.

Under the high stone archway stood a tall old man with neatly combed gray hair. He held his hands folded over his stomach in spotless white cotton gloves.

As I walked up the wet steps, the old man tilted his dark gray eyes downward, scanning my tattered cloak with open disdain. He stopped three paces away without bowing his head or placing a hand over his chest as court etiquette demanded for a bride.

"You must be the substitute bride sent by the Mercer family," he said, his voice flat and cold.

Rain dripped from the brim of my hood. I did not answer, my gaze fixed on the sharp light hidden in his eyes.

Seeing my silence, a faint sneer curved his lips. He stiffened his spine.

"I am Ab Mckay, the head butler of this castle, waiting here by order of the old Lord."

He deliberately stressed the words "old Lord." Immediately, the heavy spiritual pressure of a high-ranking warrior rolled off his body, crashing toward me like a tidal wave to force this wolfless bride to her knees.

Any ordinary wolfless girl would have collapsed on the spot. Yet I stood motionless in the howling rain. My breathing did not even hitch as my ice-blue eyes locked onto the center of his brow from beneath my hood.

Two young guards standing by the pillars snickered under their breath.

"A hideous wolfless freak doesn't even deserve the butler's gaze," one whispered.

I raised an eyebrow. Inside my sleeve, my left fingers twitched, releasing a thread of pure, lethal bloodlust honed from years as the underworld's top assassin, Cold Wolf.

The freezing killing intent locked directly onto Ab Mckay's carotid artery without leaking a single drop to the guards.

Ab Mckay's body stiffened. His gray pupils shrank to pinpricks, and an old, narrow scar on the back of his left hand twitched violently. Terror flashed across his eyes—the instinctive reaction of a battlefield veteran staring straight into the jaws of death.

I took one step forward onto the dry flagstones of the porch.

"Lead the way. I don't like wasting time on pointless staring."

I retracted my aura instantly, as if the fatal threat had been an illusion. Cold sweat beaded on Ab Mckay's forehead. Taking a sharp breath, he lowered his eyelids to avoid my gaze, pressed his right hand to his chest, and bowed his back.

"Right this way, Madam."

The two guards froze, their mocking grins dying on their faces as the arrogant head butler bowed to a wolfless peasant.

I strode into the gloomy main hall, the heavy ironwood doors booming shut behind me. Huge iron fireplaces burned with orange flames, yet the air remained thick and suffocating.

Walking half a step ahead, Ab Mckay no longer moved with his earlier arrogance, his eyes darting toward the escape corners of the hall. I watched his feet. His steps were completely silent, his weight kept on the front third of his soles. That was no servant's walk; it was the stance of an elite vanguard scout. Twenty years ago, the vanguard units had patrolled the very ancient road where my grandmother was slaughtered.

Pushing down the cold fire in my chest, I followed him up the winding stone staircase. Huge portraits of past Pack Alphas hung on the walls. The higher we climbed toward the top floor, the stranger the air smelled. Beneath the bitter scent of boiled herbs lurked the foul stench of rotting metal.

It was silver poison eating away at bone marrow. Ordinary wolves could not smell it, but as a Healer, I knew it instantly.

Ab Mckay stopped before a pair of black oak doors carved with snarling twin wolves. He turned around, lowering his voice.

"The Alpha Lord is inside. His temper has been violent lately. I wish you luck, Madam."

Ignoring his fake warning, I raised my hand and pressed it against the cold brass handle. With a dull groan of the hinges, I pushed the heavy door open a crack.

A suffocating wave of blood and the berserk pressure of a giant black wolf surged through the gap. Deep in the darkness, a pair of freezing dark-gold eyes locked onto me.