Kirastasia’s luminous honey eyes widened as she took in the brute’s battered state, silently wondering what must have happened for him to end up so poorly. Her wild imagination suddenly leapt forward, imaging some sort of horrendous battle or an ambush by thieves—

And then the soldier explained his situation. A huge laugh erupted from her jaws, so loud and sudden a few birds jumped from their high perches into the murky sky above. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,” the ice princess sniggered, not sounding sorry at all. Her luxuriously bushy tail slashed from side to side as she wagged it with all her strength, humor bursting from every pore. “Those Spring Grounds wolves . . . what a tough bunch they are!”

Of course, that wasn’t a very fair thing for Kira to say. She had never actually been to Spring Grounds, having spent most of her life in either Malignant Felicity or Saw Tooth—both packs well-known for their strength, although the former was much darker than the latter. The notion of someone wanting to join a fluffy pack like Spring Grounds in the first place . . . only to get their tail kicked by those puny wolves . . . well, the snowbird could hardly contain herself. And now the poor man wanted access into the most bloodthirsty tribe in all the land? Talk about polar opposites!

“You know, you might want to reconsider trusting those legs of yours.” Kirastasia breathlessly swallowed her laughter, trying very hard to appear as serious as possible. “This isn’t a place you should just SHOW UP to. Wolves who do that tend to get murdered. Violently!” The cheeriness of her girlish lyrics clashed disturbingly with the visceral truth of the statement. Malignant wasn’t a stable pack. They weren’t militarized and ordered like Abendrot, and they weren’t warriors of the light like Saw Tooth. They were shadows and blood. Addiction and sickness. If someone showed weakness, they weren’t given mercy and they weren’t protected; the weak were destroyed on the spot—not to be tolerated by the others. Kira had nothing against the beat-up gladiator, she just honestly wanted to warn him. Otherwise he’d be ripped apart.

“Listen, maybe you should come back when you’re feeling better? There’s this guy here: Devil. If I were to let you in, wonderful! But if he were to see you . . . especially like this . . . um, how do I put this? He’d kill you. And what would the point be?” She tilted her head to the side in an empty show of kindness, wanting this stranger to understand the danger he put himself in just by waiting at the border. How lucky he’d been that she had shown up, instead of someone else!