My father sold me in a red dress.

Of course it's red. Blood red. Sacrifice red. Here's my daughter, please don't kill us red.

I stand in the back of the transport van, hands steady despite everything, and look down at the fabric pooling around my feet. He didn't even come to see me off. My mother would have, but she's been dead since I was sixteen. A cough that lasted three months, because our pack healer had already been sold off to cover my father's first round of debts.

The van lurches to a stop. Through the tinted windows, I can see the Blackridge compound rising from the mountain like something out of a nightmare. Stone walls. Iron gates. Torches flickering in brackets along the perimeter.

Torches. In the twenty-first century.

Werewolves and their drama.

"Tribute Vance." The guard's voice is flat. Bored. Like he does this every week.

Maybe he does.

"Time to go."

I don't move. Not yet. I press my palm against the cold metal wall and breathe. In. Out. In.

You are not property.

The thought is a lie, but it's a useful one.

You are not afraid.

Another lie. A better one.

The doors swing open.

* * *

I've seen pictures of Blackridge. Everyone has. The most powerful pack in the eastern territory doesn't exactly keep a low profile. I expected the massive stone hall, the carved wolves flanking the entrance, the guards with their barely-leashed aggression.

What I didn't expect was the crowd.

They line the path from the van to the main hall. Hundreds of wolves, watching in silence. Judging. Some look curious. Some look hungry.

One woman near the front looks... sorry for me.

That's the one that almost breaks me.

I lift my chin. Square my shoulders. The red dress swishes against my legs as I walk.

Don't stumble.

Don't cry.

Don't you dare kneel.

The path feels endless. Every step is a performance. Every breath is a battle.

But I make it.

The hall doors are twenty feet tall, black iron studded with silver. They groan open as I approach, and for one wild moment I consider running. Just... bolting into the woods, taking my chances with the wild.

I'd make it maybe half a mile before they dragged me back.

Vance women don't run. My mother said that. The night she packed a bag and unpacked it, choosing to stay even though staying was killing her. She was right. She didn't run.

She also didn't survive.

We also don't get sold as tribute to settle our father's gambling debts, but here we are.

I step through the doors.

* * *

The great hall is exactly what you'd expect from a pack of overdramatic apex predators.

Stone columns reaching toward a ceiling lost in shadow. Firelight dancing across ancient tapestries. A raised dais at the far end with what can only be described as a throne.

Of course there's a throne.

I almost laugh.

The crowd parts as I walk forward, creating a path to the dais. I keep my eyes fixed ahead. Don't look at them. Don't give them anything.

The throne is empty.

No, not empty. There's a figure in the shadows beside it. Tall. Broad. Still as stone.

I stop at the base of the dais. Wait.

The silence stretches.

Then a voice comes from the shadows. Deep. Cold. Commanding.

"Kneel."

I don't.

My pulse drums so loud every wolf in this room can probably count the beats. But my knees stay locked. My spine stays straight.

"I said kneel, tribute."

The figure steps from the shadows.

And the air turns solid in my lungs.

He's... massive. Six foot three at least, built like a warrior, all hard muscle and barely contained violence. Dark hair, a face built for war, ice-blue eyes that strip me to the bone.

But that's not what steals my breath.

It's the scent.

Pine smoke. Winter cold. Something wild and ancient that bypasses my brain entirely and speaks to the animal crouching at the base of my skull.

My wolf — my pathetic, suppressed, omega wolf, the one I've spent years pretending doesn't exist — lifts her head.

Mate.

The word detonates somewhere behind my ribs.

My knees almost buckle. I lock them. My fingers curl into fists so tight my nails cut half-moons into my palms.

No.

No, no, no.

Not here. Not him. Not the Alpha I was sold to like a debt payment.

I'm still standing. I'm proud of that. My vision swims, my pulse is a riot, and every cell in my body is screaming at me to close the distance between us, but I am still. Standing.

"Is there a problem?" His voice is pure command. Pure Alpha.

I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.

Nothing comes out.

His eyes narrow.

And then another figure steps from the shadows.

The same face.

Not similar. Not fraternal. The same. Same height. Same build. Same hard jaw and impossible blue stare. As if someone made a mold and poured two of them.

My wolf, the one who just woke up for the first time in years, goes completely still.

Then she howls.

The bond snaps a second time. Harder. Deeper. A cable pulled taut between my chest and his, and I feel it connect with the same molecular certainty as the first, and my brain simply stops.

Two. There are two of them.

The second one smiles. Slower than his brother. Warmer. But no less dangerous.

"Well, well," he says. His voice is different — same depth, but lighter. Teasing. "Looks like our tribute has some fire."

Mate.

Both of them.

The word keeps coming, wave after wave, and my wolf is losing her mind, and I can't breathe, can't think, can't —

"I think she's broken," the smiling one continues. "Cat got your tongue, sweetheart?"

The first one, the cold one, takes a step toward me. "I gave you an order."

I find my voice.

"I don't kneel."

Silence.

Every wolf in the hall seems to hold their breath.

The cold twin's focus sharpens. The smiling one's grin widens.

"She doesn't kneel," he repeats, like it's the most entertaining thing he's heard in centuries. "Cade, I think I'm in love."

"Cole." The cold one, Cade, doesn't look at his brother. His eyes haven't left mine. "Quiet."

"Make me."

They're circling me now. Both of them. Moving in opposite directions, bracketing me between them.

The bond, because that's what this is, that's the only explanation, roars through me like a living thing.

Ours. Theirs. Mine.

I shove it down. Bury it. Lock it away.

Because I know what belong means. I've belonged to people before. To a father who counted my worth in currency. To a pack that looked through me like glass. Belonging has only ever meant being used.

This feels different.

That's what scares me.

"I was told I'd be serving one Alpha," I say. My voice is steadier than I feel. "No one mentioned there were two."

"Does that concern you?" Cade stops in front of me. Close enough that pine smoke and winter cold flood my senses.

"Should it?"

He tilts his head. Studies me. Those ice-blue eyes see too much.

"Most tributes are on their knees by now."

"I'm not most tributes."

"No." He says it quietly. Almost to himself. "You're not."

Cole appears at my shoulder. Close. Too close. His breath stirs my hair.

"What's your name, sweetheart?"

"Tribute Vance. That's what your guard called me."

"I'm asking what you call yourself."

I turn my head. Look at him. This close, I can see the differences. A warmer tint to his gaze. A scar, barely visible, along his jaw.

"Sera," I say. "My name is Sera."

"Sera." He rolls it around his tongue like he's tasting it. "I like that."

"I didn't ask if you liked it."

He laughs. Delighted.

Cade makes a sound low in his throat. Something between a growl and a warning.

"Enough." He addresses the hall without looking away from me. "Leave us."

The crowd disperses. Silent. Immediate. In seconds, the great hall is empty except for the three of us.

And whatever impossible thing is humming between us.

"You feel it," Cade says. Not a question.

I don't answer.

"The bond." He steps closer. "It connected. When you walked through those doors. I felt it."

"I felt it too," Cole adds. He's behind me now, his heat against my back. "Both of us. At the same time."

My throat is tight. "That's not possible."

"No," Cade agrees. "It shouldn't be."

"And yet." Cole's hand brushes my shoulder. Light. Testing. "Here we are."

Heat trails down my spine from the contact. I jerk away.

Both twins go still.

"Don't touch me."

"Little wolf..." Cade starts.

"I'm not your little anything." I step back, putting distance between us. "I came here because my pack sold me. Because my father decided I was worth less than his debts. I'm your tribute. That's the arrangement. Nothing more."

Silence.

Cade and Cole exchange a look. Brief. Loaded.

Then Cade speaks.

"The bond doesn't care about arrangements."

"Then the bond can go fuck itself."

Cole chokes on a laugh.

Even Cade's mouth twitches. Just slightly. Just for a moment.

Then the cold mask returns.

"You'll stay in our quarters," he says. "There's a room prepared."

"I'll stay wherever I choose."

"That wasn't a request."

"And I wasn't asking permission."

We stare at each other. Two immovable forces, neither willing to bend.

Cole sighs. "This is going to be fun, isn't it?"

No one answers him.

My wolf is howling. The bond is a wildfire in my chest, heat and hunger and a pull so strong my bones ache. Everything in my body is telling me to submit, to yield, to let these two Alphas claim what's apparently theirs.

I tell my body to shut up.

"I don't kneel," I repeat. Quieter this time. For them, not the crowd. "I don't submit. And I don't belong to anyone. Not my father. Not my pack."

I look at Cade. Then Cole.

"And not you."

I turn and walk toward the doors.

"The tribute quarters," I say over my shoulder. "Point me in the right direction."

Behind me, Cole's low whistle. "She's going to be a problem."

And Cade, quiet: "She already is."

* * *

The tribute quarters are small. Cold stone, narrow bed, a window too high to climb through.

I find the lock on the door and turn it.

Sit on the edge of the bed. Let myself shake.

It takes a long time to stop.

The bond is quieter here. A dull ache instead of a roar. Almost bearable.

I'm close to sleep when I hear it.

Footsteps in the corridor. Heavy. Deliberate. They stop outside my door.

One set. Not two.

I hold my breath.

He doesn't knock. Doesn't speak. But I can feel him through the bond — heat on the other side of an inch of wood. The pull sharpens until I press my fist against my sternum.

I don't know which twin it is.

I'm terrified that it matters.

The footsteps retreat. Slowly. Like leaving costs him something.

I stare at the door until my eyes burn.