When Kershov found Verity trembling and bleeding and crying on the border, he did not speak—he wordlessly hefted her onto his spine in the manner he had done for many of his wounded tundra gangmembers and carried her into the safety of Abendrot.

He walked in silence. She was so easy to carry, weighing hardly anything, as if the twisted bastards that had harmed her had carved out massive chunks of her soul. The moon-white Monarch did not stop his quiet trek until they were deep within the protective shadows of Abendrot’s heart. There he lay her tenderly down on the ground, impassive onyx eyes staring with great gravity down at her heaped form. A frigid rage howled distantly in his ribcage. No one broke one of his possessions and got away with it. Without a sound, slowly so as not to further scare the girl, Ker leaned forward and pressed his muzzle ever-so-gently into the downy fur of her neck.

“There, there,” Kershov whispered into the blood-matted fur, feeling her shiver like a tender flower in the wind under the careful pressure of his touch. He shifted his muzzle so that the un-torn part rested against her pelt. A foreleg extended and wrapped itself slowly, deftly around one of her shoulders and pulled the broken bird close so that she leaned into his expansive chest, the sturdiness of his immense upper body cradling her like a wall of snow. If her old scarlet stains marred the immaculate whiteness of his own fur, Kershov did not seem to notice. He continued to write those calm, cool, robotic reassurances into the still air as if the words had been typed on his tongue. The tundra-killer could not feel the warming glow of compassion, but he could sure as hell pretend he did for the sake of one of his precious pawns. And poor Verity needed the kindness . . . “You are safe now, my little Verity. Nothing is going to hurt you while I am here.”

As he allowed the intimacy of his heartbeat to lull Verity into a feeble sense of security, Kershov took the time to study the hideous sludge of stenches smeared onto her body like so many spatters of rotten mud. They were scents he could have recognized a lifetime ago, but now only teased his memories with vague familiarity. He had known these wolves at one time—clearly an arctic gang bent on petty revenge. The atrocities committed against innocent Verity proved how time changed wolves; had this been years ago in his homeland, no pack would dare harm one of Kershov’s own without pissing themselves in horror immediately afterward, because so much as plucking a hair from his gangmember’s pelts equaled death. Certain . . . ruthless things were commonplace on the tundra, punishments that would make the oblivious wolves of this world vomit their guts out where they stood. But here . . . here Kershov had to alter the way he normally ruled, modifying his methods to be acceptable to the creatures who called this land their home. To any tundra outsider, Kershov might as well have gone “soft.”

That perceived softness must have driven these old foes to torment Verity. They had expected their act to go unpunished.

Unseen to Verity as his mask was turned away, Ker’s bottomless black eyes narrowed into diamond-hard slits sharp enough to draw blood. He had not gone soft. He had merely adapted. And now whoever had dared commit this crime would rue the day they were ever born. Death was too gentle a penalty for what the King planned . . .

Any other wolf with a heart would have allowed the pitiable girl to cry her heart out undisturbed, would have quietly let her grieve the precious things those monsters had stolen from her. Kershov did not have time for sympathy—he required answers as soon as possible. Keeping his voice a velvet-soft croon, voice fabricating the nuances of true compassion and flawlessly hiding the emptiness inside, Ker murmured once more into Verity’s ripped ears. “I have you, Verity. Those bastards will not get away with this . . . but you need to tell me everything, sweetheart. You must paint their faces for me so that I may hate them as much as you do. I need to know who they are.”

He didn’t think she would know their names. If she had just a simple message, just a fleeting glimpse of a face or an interesting scar, then he would have the perpetrators served on a platter before his pack. Sick anticipation roiled in his abdomen. Oh, the wonderful, wonderful horrors he would inflict upon them . . .

Of course, the alabaster Alpha would also need to inflict something upon his Verity as well. Despite the perfect veneer the ivory warrior lived under, the faultless disguise that kept his monstrous nature hidden from view, Kershov was a glacial and merciless creature inside. He was cunning, and he was calculating, and he unsheathed that manipulative shard of his personality now to ensure that Verity would never, never be hurt like this ever again. It was for her own safety. A little more damage had to be dealt to prevent more injury in the future. “I am so glad you are safe back in Abendrot, little darling . . . those outsiders, they simply cannot be trusted. I’m sure you fought your hardest when they tried to take you away, though . . .” Here his voice trailed off. He knew without having to ask that lovely, innocent Verity had probably trusted those mongrels a little too much and had not thought to fight back until it was much too late. He wanted that insidious thought of failure to seed itself in her shattered mind, to take root until guilt was threaded like thick vines throughout her subconscious. Then Verity would be safe here in Abendrot forever.