Their heartbreak. Their homes. Their priceless possessions and lives…

My ears rang with the screams and anguish of those I’d left behind.

The sickness of guilt was a weight that would never leave, no matter how much I reminded myself that I couldn’t change anything. How he could slaughter lives and livelihoods in the name of vengeance, I couldn’t and refused to understand.

I swallowed, my voice quiet as I tried and failed to mask my distaste. “While I cannot say I like how you came to possess them, I do like that combination.” The reminder of what he was, of what he did to assumingly helpless souls, had chilled me to the bone.

Scythe looked over at me as though sensing as much, but he wisely said nothing. He remained still and awaited my next move with unreadable and lupine features.

I forced myself to avert my gaze as the male who focused so keenly on me refused to hide what he truly was.

A predator keeping watch on his prey.

In an effort to rid the unwelcome cold and the increased tempo of my heart, I roamed the cottage. Some moments later, my mind still riddled with the terror of the helpless and the dying, he mercifully lit the stove, the scent of sizzling meat soon following.

When the fighting had moved from assassination attempts to outright displays of violent force in our kingdom, my father had said no two sides were ever faultless in war.

As the king’s favored general, he’d then been forced to start taking me to royal events while he worked, rather than leave me to our quiet life within the woods. During those frightening, formative years, the years in which I’d matured, I’d found myself a prince.

And it was during the months before my father’s death that I’d agreed to marry him.

I had to wonder what my father would think of it all now, and if he’d somehow known what would come to pass. He’d not seemed happy with our engagement. He’d expressed that he was relieved I would be taken care of—that I would be safe—and little else. Then again, with the exception of a fresh slab of venison he’d hunted himself, the fearsome general had never been overly thrilled by much.

A smile untucked my lips from my teeth.

Perhaps that was why I felt so drawn to this wolf who went by the odd name of Scythe. For they were similar, and not merely because he was a shifter just as my father had been, but due to their frank belief that there was no right or wrong.

There was only duty. A primal loyalty to see to what must be done.

No lies and no games.