The forest was tense with foreboding under a silver sea of moonlight. Enormous trees, lush throughout this land and fiery with autumn’s breath, stood as ancient sentinels with creaking arms outstretched, casting stark black shadows over the forest floor. This season had swept a chill into midnight, robbing those comfortable and balmy summer evenings from this part of the world. A ghostly mist had draped a vague, sparkling veil over Abendrot’s hidden pathways—and through these halls stalked a ghost more terrifying than any dreamed of in a nightmare. Kershov was hunting. And when the King was hunting, the woods paused to listen.

For a creature best adapted to endless expanses of shivering tundra grass and blinding snowy horizons, the frost-born Pharaoh had adapted remarkably well to this intimate environment; he wore the shade of his forest as if it were a royal cloak, darkness stealing some of the shine from his immaculate ivory canvas and turning into a subtle, paranormal glow. He knew his territory as well as he knew his own reflection, utilizing each and every hidden corner to his advantage. His enormous snowshoe paws muffled his carefully, painstakingly measured steps. His nerve endings quivered, perfectly in tune with the world around him, senses on highest alert and yet so flawlessly ingrained with the present that it seemed as if Kershov were nothing more than an extension of the woods—the spirit of darkness and wilderness incarnate. Ker had been tracking the limping stag the moment it stumbled foolishly into his boundaries, starving and weak. He followed it constantly, refusing to let it rest or drink or eat. Rather than calling the pack, the vicious Czar had decided to claim the potential prize as his own personal toy; Kershov needed release from whatever unfamiliar tempest of emotions was churning in his gut, and a solo hunt proved just the thing to distract his mind from thoughts of Vladya . . .

Thoughts of Vladya running off with that filthy Munashii princess . . .

Thoughts of deepest insult and disappointment . . .

Kershov parted his shark’s jaws and a savage snarl tore ravenously from the cavern of his throat. Ahead, the hazy outline of the buck shivered with fear—but it could nothing more than feebly brandish its antlers as a massive smoke-white monster erupted from the undergrowth—thick fur illuminated briefly by the moonlight—and slammed into its side, punching the air from its tired lungs before burying angry curved fangs into the meat of its neck. Ker shook the stag as if it were weightless, the vertebrae in its neck giving a sickening crack that signaled its instant death even as its arterial blood spurted faintly down the Alpha’s gullet. Still Kershov sawed into his prey, torturing its corpse, unleashing every last ounce of pain and frustration and RAGE trapped within his chest until he dropped the deer, gasping and growling, at his soiled paws. The Regal’s pallid throat was slick and steaming with hot crimson. The fresh blood painted across his face made the wound on the right side of his muzzle appear livid and fresh, as if only seconds before someone had shorn away an entire jowl to reveal rows of permanently grinning teeth. Kershov—the forever-smiling demon. And as he gazed down at the dead animal with merciless onyx eyes, the heartless beast finally had something to smile about.

The ruthless Monarch of Abendrot tore into his meal as if he were starving. Once he’d gorged himself, Kershov left the rest of the rapidly cooling carcass to the forest’s scavengers—or whoever else in his pack happened to stop by. Ker slipped back into the decadent corridors of his kingdom with a much lighter, controlled state of mind, choosing on a whim to check on the border. Ever since the incident with those Saw Tooth fools, Abendrot had been on edge ensuring that their boundaries were secure. Kershov understood perfectly well that other packs feared and hated his army, operating on their own pitiful ignorance to conclude that Abendrot was simply a pit of mindless killers. Imbeciles. They saw Abendrot’s struggle toward power and greatness as a threat to all of them; they cowered under Abendrot’s seething ambition, automatically assuming that the military band wanted to conquer all kingdoms. What a notion! Abendrot had—and always would—strive to be the best on its own; Kershov didn’t need to seek alliances or simper for friendship from those too stupid and too paranoid to grasp the purpose of his wolves. And as for conquering? Why take over a lesser pack? It would be like pup-sitting. Disgusting.

That was why—the instant he caught the scent of two strange females—an irritated rumble thundered up from the dragon’s chest. He recognized the pungent musk of Aurora from what his spies had brought him on their brief outings. What the hell did they want in the middle of the night?

He efficiently altered his path so that he would meet the faes head-on, colossal frame maneuvering with surprising agility and grace past thorny bushes and tangled roots. Once Kershov extricated himself from the darkest part of the shadows, standing at last before a pair of nearly identical sheilas, a beam of cold moonlight fell across his visage and made the gore on his pelt glisten like war paint. The girls stood quietly, albeit tensely, just outside of the invisible wall, their posture tall and their amber eyes serious. Kershov tilted his head inquisitively, the striking intensity of his bottomless black pools spearing first at one, then the other face, silently dissecting their features, gleaning what information he could simply from their body language. When the icy Alpha addressed them, his tone was neither friendly nor unwelcoming: just business, plain and simple. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of your company tonight, emissaries of Aurora? We were not expecting you . . .”