Brand of the Winter Ghost

Tessa

The ice bites at my bare knees. It seeps through the thin fabric of my tunic, a cold so deep it feels like it’s piercing bone. Two warriors hold my arms, their grips like iron clamps. Before me, the entire Silvermoon pack forms a silent, watching semi-circle. Their breath plumes in the frigid air, a hundred ghostly accusations.

And in the center of it all stands Kael. My Alpha. My mate.

His silver eyes, the color of a winter sky, are just as cold as the ice beneath me. There is none of the warmth I once knew, none of the fire I fell in love with. He holds up a small, dark object for everyone to see. A carved wolf’s head, stained with something that looks like dried blood.

“This was found in her sleeping furs,” Kael’s voice rings out, sharp and clear, cutting through the howling wind. “A token from the Red River hunters. Our sworn enemies.”

A collective gasp ripples through the pack. Fear. Anger. I can feel it rolling off them in waves. My own breath catches in my throat, a knot of pure panic.

“No,” I whisper, my voice raw. “Kael, that’s not true.”

He ignores me, his gaze sweeping over the crowd. He is a master of this, of holding them all in the palm of his hand. His charisma is a weapon, one he is now aiming directly at my heart.

“She met them at the whispering falls,” he continues, his voice laced with a performer’s sorrow. “She sold them our patrol routes. She told them of our weaknesses. All for what? A promise of safety when they come to slaughter us in our beds?”

“I didn’t,” I say, louder this time, struggling against the guards. Their fingers dig deeper into my flesh. “Kael, please. Tell them the truth. You know I would never.”

He finally looks at me. The coldness in his eyes intensifies, and it’s like being plunged into a frozen lake. “The truth? The truth is that I was blind. I took an omega into my heart, and she repaid my trust with treachery.”

My mind spins, desperately trying to make sense of this nightmare. The whispering falls. We went there together a month ago. He told me he was meeting a neutral party to secure a trade for rare herbs, a cure for the lung fever that took so many pups last winter. He said his position as the new Alpha was too precarious, that he couldn't be seen dealing with outsiders. He asked me to wait, to stand watch. I did it because I loved him. Because I trusted him.

“The meeting was yours,” I choke out, the words tearing at my throat. “You made a deal. For a secret trade. You told me so yourself.”

Kael lets out a short, harsh laugh. It’s a sound I’ve never heard from him before. It’s cruel. “She tries to shift the blame. How typical of a traitor. She paints me as the villain to save her own skin.”

I search the faces in the crowd, looking for a single ally, a flicker of doubt. I see Lyra, her hands clutching her stomach. We grew up together, sharing secrets and dreams under the summer moon. She was the first person I told when Kael chose me. Her eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second, filled with pity and terror, before she quickly looks down at her snow covered boots. She will not help me. No one will.

“You are a liar,” I spit, the accusation finally giving me a spark of heat in the overwhelming cold. “You stood on this very spot one moon ago and swore to protect this pack with honor. What honor is there in this, Kael? What honor is there in condemning your own mate with your own lies?”

He stalks towards me, his movements fluid and predatory. He crouches down, bringing his face level with mine. The scent of pine and winter frost that I always found so comforting now feels suffocating. “My honor is in cutting out the poison that threatens to kill us all. And you, Tessa, are the poison.”

His words are a physical blow. The bond between us, that shimmering, invisible thread that connects a mated pair, writhes in my chest. It screams at the falsehood, at the violent rejection from its other half.

“I am your mate,” I whisper, a last, desperate appeal. “The moon goddess herself bound us. You cannot do this.”

“The goddess does not bind traitors to Alphas,” he says, his voice dropping to a low, menacing growl. “She gives us the strength to sever such corruption.”

He stands and turns back to the pack. “As Alpha of the Silvermoon, I find Tessa guilty of treason. Her punishment is rejection and exile.”

Panic, raw and absolute, claws its way up my throat. Rejection. It’s a fate worse than death. The severing of a mate bond is an agony few survive. The pain can drive a wolf mad.

“No,” I plead, tears I didn’t know I had in me finally breaking free, freezing instantly on my cheeks. “Kael, don’t. Please, whatever you think I did, please don’t do this.”

He raises his hands, silencing my pleas. “We will perform the rite. Now.”

One of the warriors yanks me to my feet. The world tilts, my head light with terror. They drag me to the center of the circle, forcing me to face Kael before the ancient Oath Stone. He places his palm on its icy surface.

“I, Kael, Alpha of the Silvermoon, do renounce the bond sworn under the eye of the moon.”

He looks directly at me. “I renounce Tessa. I cast her from my heart. I cast her from my pack. She is no longer my mate. She is nothing.”

The moment he says the word ‘nothing’, the bond snaps. It is not a gentle unraveling. It is a violent, brutal tearing. A scream rips from my lungs as a white hot agony explodes in my chest, as if my very soul is being ripped in two. I collapse, clutching at my heart, the pain so immense I can’t breathe. It feels like a vital part of me has been carved out, leaving a gaping, bleeding void. I can feel the echo of him, the space he used to occupy in my spirit, now just a raw, open wound.

Through a haze of pain, I see him approach. He no longer looks like the man I love. His face is a mask of cold duty, his eyes empty of any emotion. One of the warriors pulls my tunic, exposing the skin of my left shoulder. I see another pack member approaching, his face grim, carrying a long iron rod with a glowing, red hot tip.

The symbol of the pack, a crescent moon, has been twisted. The ends are sharpened into fangs, a perversion of our sigil. The mark of the traitor.

“So that all may know your crime,” Kael says, his voice distant, as if coming from a great height.

I try to struggle, to pull away, but their hands are too strong. I squeeze my eyes shut. I hear the hiss before I feel it. Searing, unimaginable pain lances through my shoulder. The smell of my own burning flesh fills my nostrils, a sickening, acrid scent. The agony of the brand is so sharp, so absolute, it momentarily eclipses the tearing emptiness in my chest. Another scream is torn from me, raw and animalistic.

When it’s over, they release me. I fall to the snow, smoke rising from my shoulder. The wound weeps, a fiery counterpoint to the frozen ground. I am shaking uncontrollably, from shock, from pain, from a cold that has nothing to do with the weather.

I look up at Kael one last time, through a curtain of tangled hair and tears. I want him to see what he has done. I want him to see the ruin he has made of me, of us. But he has already turned his back. He is addressing his pack, his voice strong and commanding, already moving on.

“Go,” a warrior growls, nudging me with his boot. “Get out. You are not welcome here.”

Using the last of my strength, I push myself up. My legs tremble, threatening to give out. Every part of me hurts. The void in my chest is a black hole, sucking all warmth and hope from the world. The brand on my shoulder throbs with a vicious fire. I take one stumbling step, then another, away from the circle of firelight, away from the only home I have ever known.

The pack parts for me, a sea of hostile and fearful faces. No one speaks. No one moves to help. They press back as if my touch might contaminate them. I am an outcast. A thing to be reviled.

I reach the edge of the clearing and don’t look back. There is nothing left for me there. I plunge into the forest, into the heart of the blizzard. The wind whips at me, screaming in my ears, flinging ice and snow into my face. It’s a physical assault, but it’s nothing compared to the storm raging inside me.

He did this. He planned it all. The secret meetings, the false evidence, the public spectacle. He needed a scapegoat to hide his own dealings, a distraction to solidify his power. And he chose me. He used my love, my trust, and he sacrificed me for his ambition.

The snow deepens, stealing the strength from my legs. The cold is a heavy blanket, trying to drag me down into a final, peaceful sleep. Part of me wants to let it. It would be so easy to just lie down and let the world fade away. To let the pain stop.

But as my vision begins to blur, as the world narrows to a tunnel of white, a different feeling stirs in the embers of my shattered soul. A tiny, hard spark of rage. He will not be the end of me. He took my home, my mate, my name. But he will not take my life.

I will survive this. I will live. And one day, I will see the truth branded onto him for all the world to see.