Once the cats had been disposed of, his pack had been happy to leave the gory crime scene and get on with their lives. Scent markers around the border were reinforced tenfold; nightly patrols increased; everyone was on high alert for signs of any other unwelcome predators lurking within the castle, noses pointed to catch the musk of cat and eyes wide for signs of claw-marks in the trees. They’d defeated their enemy, as Kershov knew they would . . . but not without a high cost that the King refused to pay again. The deep ache in his leg every morning still sent savage bursts of rage howling through his chest like blizzard winds. It had been days before he felt confident enough to three-legged hobble around the territory without jarring the fractured bone. Thankfully, as a previous warlord, the white demon knew enough about basic healing to fix himself without the help of a trained expert . . . but once more he felt the acute, desperate need for professionals in his army. So far, each attempt at creating a Healing Guild had failed. Wolves with knowledge of medicine were hard to come by, anyway, and none seemed to want a job within Blossom’s resident barracks.

Until the cougars, that emptiness had been an inconvenience. Now it was dangerous.

“I’m sure you’d regret your choice to come here, if you were still capable of feeling regret.” Kershov’s cool, conversational tone was directed at the rotting skull of the male cougar. Yes, his troops had been happy to leave the battle ground . . . but Kershov had returned, in the dead of night, to procure the trophies he deserved. The felines were too big to move in one piece, so he’d settled for beheading them and dragging the macabre prizes deeper into the woods. Both skulls found themselves impaled on branches: wolf-height, so that Kershov could look into their barren eye sockets and sneer at them. Already starving scavengers had peeled away most of their flesh. Foul secretions seeped from beneath what was left; had summer’s heat been present, these putrid things would probably pollute the air with their stench. As it happened, frost had done its job to halt the natural degrading process. Cat-sicles. How hilarious. “Maybe I’ll mount your miserable heads along the border. Do your kind respond well to warnings, I wonder?”

A dark, smoky chuckle purled from the Czar’s throat, a sound no mortal creature should be capable of making. Then, abruptly bored with his one-sided conversation, he pivoted to leave—but not without snagging the deceased male’s unhinged jawbone in his teeth and ripping it clean off to be spat upon the ground.

“Until next time,” the ivory devil growled.

His bone had mostly reset itself; as long as he made sure not to put weight on it, the fractures would mend together and leave his infrastructure stronger than before. But until that time . . . damn those pumas. Surely there was poppy growing somewhere that he could dip into; that monster Draven had managed to discover some, so why not him? Perhaps he should check by the escaped prisoner’s den . . . if there wasn’t poppy, there could always be some alternate clue as to how the coward had managed to heal himself . . .

That scent . . . Grey Wind and company. On his way toward Draven’s empty cell, Kershov caught a note of his prized soldier’s cologne on the breeze. And with it: that odd female layer, a stranger’s scent that Ker couldn’t recall having led into Abendrot himself. What better time to investigate than now? Still grimacing slightly as he changed his course, Ker trudged toward Grey’s den. At the very least he might find something amusing; at the most, Grey Wind was trying to hide something he wasn’t sure Kershov would appreciate.

The sound of voices welled up from a den carved a few yards away. Ker’s sensitive ears flicked forward, only able to grasp a few words from this distance. Family . . . information . . . what was this girl going on about?

Soon his talons were skimming the edge of the den’s entrance. Kershov tilted his head, giving the wolves inside a few more seconds of quiet before his ice-smooth voice poured down. “Excuse me, Grey Wind, but would I be overstepping my boundaries if I asked you who the hell you have in your barracks?”