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Kassandra twisted her hair into a braid and knotted it at the nape of her neck the best she could without leather lacing to bind it. Xander strode up and grunted at her to get into a new wagon without sparing her a single glance.

Surprisingly, it was covered, and much larger than the wagon she’d traveled in during the past week. It also wasn’t empty.

Cian and Briseis sat on a comfortable litter and chatted quietly. Over the past week, she and Cian spoke a few words in passing but otherwise hadn’t spent time together since he’d moved to another wagon. As she sat, she scanned the camp, her fingers twisting together. Was her vision for this morning? Tomorrow? They usually occurred closely before the tragedy struck.

It was foggy in the dream, like it was now, and the light seemed similar. It had to be today. Her stomach churned, and she was grateful she hadn’t eaten. She shouldn’t care what happened to Lodan’s people, they were her enemy. She should instead think about escaping during the turmoil of what was going to happen, but Greta, despite her grumbling, had been kind to her. She didn’t deserve to die.

She heard the shouts first since the fog was too dense to see beyond the group of wagons near her.

Lodan appeared, the mist spitting him out and curling around him as he ran with a small bundle in his arms. Blood dripped down his arms.

“Xander, I need a tent. Now. And get Greta’s medical supplies.” His gaze locked with Kassandra’s. “You said you learned healing.”

Cian and Briseis pressed at her back, gasping as a few more warriors staggered after Lodan, all bleeding heavily.

They weren’t dead.

She knelt there frozen, unable to comprehend what she saw. For once, her vision hadn’t come true.

“Omega. Can you work on them?”

She shook her head to clear it. “I only know the basics.”

“That’s more than any of us know.”

Xander ran over, and Lodan gently passed Greta to him, rolling her into Xander’s arms with care.

Kassandra glanced to the right, to the thick forest, only a few steps away. She could run for it now while everyone was distracted.

“What happened?” Xander asked.

“Sardi soldiers in the woods. Two of them to every one of us. We left none standing but send out a team to search for more.” Lodan pivoted toward her. His gaze was piercing, as if he could tell she’d thought about escaping. “Let’s go.”

She hopped down off the wagon and followed Xander to a tent still waiting to be dismantled for the daily trek. Lodan barked orders to the wounded men, and they stripped off armor to expose their wounds. Each one had nasty gashes, and one had an arrow in his thigh.

A couple of Betas rushed into the tent with blankets and some bed litters. They also brought a beautiful box inlaid with different colored wood. Xander lay Greta down, and Kassandra knelt at her side.

A massive gash lay along Greta’s shoulder and down her chest, but the worst was the wound at her temple. It no longer bled, but mottled bruising already purpled the side of her face. A sword hadn’t gone through her neck, but something struck her. “What happened?”

One of the injured soldiers said, “A soldier hit her with the butt end of his spear.”

Carefully, Kassandra examined the matted blood. Head wounds were tricky—she could heal Greta to the best of her ability, and she still may die. “Are her injuries the worst? Or does someone else need me first?”

“The others can wait to be treated.”

She glanced up at Lodan. He wanted a Beta treated before his Alphas? She didn’t know any Alphas who valued a Beta life over his warriors. “I need water. Boil it first. Get soap. Also, bring strips of linen so I can bind their cuts.” As she opened the healer’s box, Lodan repeated her orders, making the Betas scurry away.

Kassandra shoved her sleeves up to her elbows, and when the water arrived, she soaped up and worked on Greta. She wasn’t sure of all the herbs and pastes the healer had meticulously laid out in separate compartments inside her kit, but she recognized the bright yellow yarrow powder to stop bleeding. She spoke to a slight Beta female at her right, “Make that into a thick paste, like syrup. I’ll need it.”

When she demanded a small knife to cut away Greta’s hair, Lodan didn’t refuse—he handed her his own blade strapped at his waist. “I don’t see that her skull is cracked,” she told him. “So that’s good. But I don’t know if she’ll wake up or not.”

He nodded.

After she cleaned the wound, she struggled trying to wrap Greta’s head, not wanting to jolt her. Lodan grabbed a side of the linen and helped shimmy it into position. Again he was gentle, far more gentle than she would expect from a Warlord.

She cleaned and bound the rest of Greta’s wounds, then applied a white willow bark salve on the contusions. “I think that’s the best I can do for now.” Kassandra got to her feet, her knees creaking from kneeling so long. “Who’s next?” The one with the arrow in his thigh was pale and sweating, his skin taking on a green tinge. She pointed. “That one.” She studied the others and gave them a number in the order she’d treat them.

One of the Betas brought a chair in, and she seated the warrior in front of her. He was broad, but not as broad as Lodan. The arrow was in the side of his thigh, but not too deep. Painful, but it didn’t look life-threatening, yet he seemed about to keel over. “Are you injured somewhere else?” Kassandra dabbed a fresh cloth around the arrow. Should she just yank it out?

“No.” He studied the tent wall, going an even more disturbing mixture of grayish green. His throat jumped as he swallowed.

“If you’re going to throw up, let me know.”

That made him turn and glare. “I don’t throw up.”

“Good.” She yanked the arrow out, and he turned pale as milk, but he didn’t utter a sound.

He closed his eyes. “I don’t like seeing my own blood. I have no issues when I slay someone else, but my own blood …” He trailed off. “And tell me if you’re stitching me.” His hands clasped into fists. “I want to be prepared.”

She would need to use a needle on this to get it to stop bleeding, but she didn’t think she’d tell him. His breathing came in shallow pants, and his eyes were still closed. Despite herself, she almost smiled. A big Alpha warrior afraid of blood?

“What’s your name?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lodan crossed his arms and scowled.

“Thoas.”

“Where are you from?”

His hands relaxed as Thoas started telling her about his home. Even when she pinched the sides of his wound together and began stitching with the fishing line Greta had in her kit. As she kept working on his wound, he spoke about Myrdinia. “At home, it’s warm sun most of the year. We have a rainy season in the winter, but it’s a warm rain. Not like this bullshit here.” His eyes flickered open, and he looked at her. “Sorry.”

She did smile this time. “I’ve heard worse.”

His skin was a normal color by the time she was done. “You’re all set.”

The warrior stood, looking at his thigh. “That went better than I expected.”

Fixing the rest of the warriors was a flurry of activity. Amazingly, none of them had serious wounds. Not like in her dream when blood sprayed across the mossy ground as these same warriors had their heads and limbs removed.

By the end, only Lodan remained, watching the slumbering Greta. Blood streamed down his forearm. “Did you get hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

She sighed. “Come here. Do you need to take your armor off?”

“If you’re trying to get me naked, all you have to do is ask.”

“I have no interest in seeing that.”

“Of course you do. You can’t take your eyes off me.”

He sat in the chair, and she kneeled beside him. His scent washed over her. Potent, like the feeling she got when she drank too much wine. She shook her head. Focus .

A slash ran up from his elbow, slicing the skin neatly in two. It was deep but not through to the bone. “This needs to be sewn.” She cleaned him like she had the others. “Do you want me to distract you from the needle?”

“No. I’ve had much worse than this.”

“I know. I saw your scars.”

He turned his head. “I’m sure they were unappealing to a princess.”

“They tell your story. That’s not unappealing.”

His head snapped around, and their gazes met. His expression softened. “Now that I know Thoas is afraid of blood. I’ll have to watch him in battle to make sure he doesn’t faint.”

Was Lodan teasing? Flustered, she studied his face. Too tough to tell. He only had one look—his I’m-going-to-take-your-head-off-now look.

“Your dream about the attack was correct,” he said. “How is that possible?”

Kassandra bit her lip and refocused on his arm. “I told you. I get premonitions. Usually, no one listens.” She waited for the disdain or the fear disguised as disgust.

“Tell me exactly what you saw.”

She stared at his arm as she stitched his skin back together. “In my vision, I saw Greta killed, then all your men. They were ambushed by a group all wearing black armor.” She swallowed. She knew that armor.

“I arrived from the west, so I saw the Sardi band creeping into the trees where Greta was,” he said. “I was able to yell a warning. If I hadn’t done that, the Sardi would have surprised my men, and your vision likely would have come true.” He studied her a long moment. “By telling me, many Sardi were killed, and many Myrdinians were saved.”

She shivered and looked away. “I saw soldiers in black and men dying. You all look the same when you’re consumed with bloodlust.” Only the Sardi wore black armor with the Sardi crest on the chest in gold. She knew who the men in black were, and she’d told him anyway.

She waited for the horror. For the guilt. But she felt … nothing. She kept seeing Greta’s face as the sword hit her. She tilted her face up to his. “Why would someone attack an elderly Beta? Isn’t there supposed to be honor in battle? Warrior against warrior?”

“The Myrdinians believe in honor in battle.” She waited for him to taunt her about how horrible the Sardi were, but he didn’t. He didn’t need to. She’d seen how they treated Greta for herself.

“You said you never see anything good,” Lodan said. “Do you always see death?”

She finished his stitches. “Death or a disaster, like a fire, or a war.”

He settled back in the chair. She still knelt in front of him. An Omega in front of an Alpha. She should have stood up, but she remained close to him.

He shifted on his seat. “Why were you really kept in that temple? Didn’t any Alphas ask for your hand?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t accept any of their offers when I lived in the palace, and none came for me after. They all knew about my visions.” Their gazes met. Held. “No one would want me for a wife after that.”

“I would think royal blood would be more important.” He didn’t say it with his normal, cruel, cold tone. “Isn’t that all the Sardi care about?”

“I told you, I’m a bad choice. You shouldn’t want me either.” She turned back to her stitches, but they were complete. She fussed over them anyway, simply so she wouldn’t have to meet his gaze again. “No one wants to take the chance their children might have fits.”

A long silence filled the tent. “Is your new tactic to make me pity you so I’ll release you?”

It was her turn to sneer. “As if I want your pity.”

“No. You want something else from me.”

Her cheeks burned, but she jerked her chin up to look him in the eye. “You muddle my head, that’s all. It’s Alpha games, not you, specifically.” But she’d met many Alphas before, and he was the only one she’d ever desired. She gritted her teeth. “I don’t have the slightest interest in anything you have to offer. I’d rather kiss an ogre.”

“We’re going up near the Dorian mountains. That can be arranged.”

Silence spread for a long moment. She patted his leg. “All set.”

He raised his arm and studied the stitches. “Don’t tell Greta, but I think you’re better at it than she is.” Another long pause and his gaze met hers. “You really saw me on the beach with Chiron.”

She maintained eye contact. “Yes.”

Before Kassandra realized what he was doing, he’d lifted her onto his lap. “Do you think you’ll see other parts of my past?”

No one had ever believed or asked about her abilities; they shrank back in fear or dismissed her. “I’ve never had a vision of the past before.”

“The Sardi knew about your abilities and didn’t believe you? Why? Why didn’t they want to learn the future from you like an oracle? Why banish you?”

Shame made her stomach tight and her face hot. “When I was fifteen, we had a large feast at the palace to honor my father’s birthday. Every Sardi noble was there, as well as many from lesser houses.”

Except, her brother and his troop of warriors were missing. It was the first time she’d ever seen her father angry at her brother. He’d been furious that her brother hadn’t returned in time for the festival.

“I stood at the front of the feast next to my father.” Her spine straightened. She relived this memory all the time because it was the precise moment when her entire life changed.

Late summer sun had warmed the air. A gentle breeze from the ocean wafted through the palace courtyard with the smell of lemons from the orchards beyond the wall.

She’d been excited for weeks, wearing a new purple dress and looking forward to feasting and dancing. “Mid-way through my father’s speech, while he was thanking everyone for coming, I had a vision.” She looked down at her lap. “Apparently I fell to the ground, and it looked like I was having a fit. Oracles don’t act that way. The gods talk to them, and they recite their words. So, no one believed I truly saw the future. No one listened.

“When the rumors about me started, my father decided I should stay locked in the palace so no one would see me having a fit again. Then, when I declined all offers for my hand, he sent me to the temple.”

Lodan’s eyes narrowed a fraction, and Alpha aggression tinged the air. She leaned back, away from him. He was probably angry all his plans were ruined because he’d kidnapped a defective Omega. That should make her pleased—she didn’t want him to want her—but instead, all she felt was the familiar burn of shame deep in her gut.

“You were kept out of sight?”

“After I came of age, I was allowed to come to dinner if there was an Alpha my father thought he could convince to marry me.” She cringed as she remembered all the eyes studying her, waiting to see if she’d fall to the ground again. “You talked about pitying me. The truth is, people will pity you when they learn you have the Sardi princess as your broodmare. It won’t have the kind of impact you want.” The words almost physically hurt coming out. “You want Anatolia gossiping about you and your conquests, not me.”

His anger grew, his scent deepening. “Typical Sardi, you think people are always talking about you. No one cares about a Sardi princess. And Myrdinians don’t gossip.”

Her brows shot up. “You care enough to kidnap me. And everyone gossips.”

“We don’t.”

“I suppose it is tough to picture—I mean, what would Myrdinians talk about?” She set her lips to mimic the way Lodan always scowled and deepened her voice. “‘Oh gee, you really took that man’s head off so well back there. I must know your technique.’”

His left brow twitched. “None of us says, ‘Oh gee.’”

She ignored him. “I realize you’ve spent your life with a sword in your hand, hungering after blood, but do you know what it’s like when you run a kingdom? Have a court? Battles are fought with tongues, and tongues can wag furiously.”

“I’ll cut them off.”

She snorted. “I’m sure you will.”

He studied her a long moment. “Do you think if you touch another scar of mine, you’ll see my past again?”

“I hope not. I don’t want to know anything else about you.”

His fingers stroked up the back of her neck, tugging at the knot she’d put her hair in so it fell loose. “I like your hair better free. And even if it is a mess, I’m glad you never cut it short.”

She slapped at his hand. “Stop that.”

His eyes widened. For a moment, she swore his lips twitched, but there was no way he’d find her amusing. “I want it up. We already discussed my hair is a nuisance. If it was down, it would have gotten in the way today.”

His fingers curled around the nape of her neck. “You smacked me. I’m going to punish you for that.”

“I’m already living in hades. Do your worst.”

His other hand went to her lower back and pressed her against him. “I could spank you until you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week.” As if to prove his point, he stretched his palm flat so she could feel how large it was. Her pulse shot up. Would he really spank her? “I could make you walk behind my horse, splattered in mud and shit.” He leaned forward, and his lips grazed the sensitive skin under her ear. She shivered.

His teeth nibbled over the mark he’d left last night. It seemed to contain all her nerve ends, and when he used the tip of his tongue to trace a small pattern, she gasped. How did that small, wet pressure feel so good?

With a tiny motion, she stretched her throat a fraction to give him better access. He took that as an open invitation and used the hand still at her nape to expose her throat further. Then his wicked mouth feasted. He sucked at her neck. Heat kicked in her blood.

Tension built like a bow being drawn.

Her hands plunged into his hair, and she tightened her grip, urging his mouth to keep doing what it was doing. Hot desire pooled between her legs.

He groaned. “You want me to rut you right here.”

“I hate you. I don’t want you to rut me at all.” She rocked her hips and rubbed against him, trying for more friction. Trying to get closer. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and when his hand released her neck to trail down her spine, she rubbed her entire front along his chest, burbling her frustration that his armor kept her from his skin. If she was going to smell like him, he should smell like her.

Her mouth found his jaw, and she kissed it. She trailed her lips toward his.

He jerked his head away.

No kissing . Because she was simply his toy. His plaything. Not his mate. The heat flowing through her veins cooled, and she sat back.

His lips tightened. “We’ll finish this later.” At that, he stood, placing her on the ground before him.

Her cheeks burned. Yet again, she’d ended up on top of him, groping him. And she’d almost kissed him after he’d said he would never kiss her. As if she hadn’t humiliated herself enough talking about her visions, she was acting like some lovesick Omega, desperate for an Alpha’s affection.

She needed to talk to Cian because the strobile wasn’t working well enough. “No, we won’t.” She waved toward Greta. “I’ll need to sleep in here tonight.” Away from you .

“I tell you where you sleep.” And he left the tent.