1
Elsa
Cold.
Sharp, relentless, bone-deep cold seeped through Elsa’s flight suit and settled into her marrow. Her lashes fluttered—sticky with frost—and the world came into focus in disjointed, swaying fragments.
The ground moved beneath her. No.Shewas moving.
Her body jolted with every heavy step, and a dull, throbbing ache pulsed through her side where something—someone—had her slung over their shoulder like cargo. Thick fur brushed against her bare arms, coarse and warm against her frozen skin. Heat radiated from the creature’s massive frame, a stark contrast to the brutal chill gnawing at every exposed inch of her.
She winced as the shoulder dug into her bruised ribs. Each stride sent pain lancing through her torso, sharp and clarifying.
Her head lolled to the side. The sky stretched above, vast and alien. Those stars—that wasn’t her sky. None of those constellations existed on any celestial map she’d ever charted. No Orion. No Polaris. No familiar anchor points.
Just cold, distant light scattered across an indifferent void.
The metallic tang of smoke hung in the frozen air. In the distance, she could see a crater—a smoldering wound in the snow-drenched earth. The wreckage of her escape vessel lay like a broken egg, its hull cracked wide, a chunk of its side split open and curled back. Twisted metal caught the faint silver glow of an unfamiliar moon. Embers flickered orange against the white landscape, eating away at the last remnants of her life.
Her humanity.
Everything she’d been before this moment.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, clouding in the frozen air. “Let me go.” The words scraped raw from her throat, barely escaping her lips before the howling wind swallowed them whole.
The creature didn’t slow. Didn’t acknowledge her at all. Its breathing was deep and steady—a rumbling rhythm that vibrated through her chest where she pressed against its back. Thick muscle shifted beneath the fur with every powerful stride, carrying her as if she weighed nothing.
Jagged shadows of trees loomed on either side, their skeletal branches tipped with frost. The forest pressed close, dark and endless, swallowing what little light the moon offered. Snow crunched beneath massive feet—not human feet, something heavier, something with claws that bit into the frozen ground.
A howl split the night.
Low. Guttural. It rolled through the trees like thunder, and Elsa’s pulse slammed against her ribs.
More howls answered. Closer. A chorus of voices that weren’t quite animal, weren’t quite human. The sound scraped against something primal in her brain—the ancient part that remembered what it meant to be prey.
Her head snapped toward the noise. Dark shapes materialized from the shadows. Hulking figures with broadshoulders and thick fur, running on two legs with a speed that defied their size. Their eyes cut through the haze—bright, luminous, glowing with an inner light that tracked her as they fell into formation alongside her captor.
A pack.
They carried others. She caught glimpses through the blur of motion and snowfall—limp forms draped over massive shoulders. The white of a wedding gown. The dark fabric of a chef’s uniform. More survivors from the escape vessel, slung like prizes across the backs of monsters.
A growl erupted from the creature carrying her, chest vibrating against her hip. The sound was answered by a bark from somewhere to the left, then another from behind. Communication. They weretalking.
Elsa’s fingers twitched against the thick fur, searching for purchase, for leverage—anything. Her muscles refused to obey. Whatever strength she’d had before the crash had drained away, leaving her hollow and heavy all at once.
She could only hang there, helpless, as the cold bit at her exposed skin and the creature’s warmth seeped into her like a twisted lifeline.
The musky scent of earth and frost filled her lungs with every breath. Alien. Wrong. The rhythmic thud of its footsteps vibrated through her bones, a drumbeat marking her descent into nightmare.
Think. Think.
The crash. The alarms screaming through theStardancer’scorridors. The captain’s voice over the intercom—Abandon ship!—right before the world became noise and fire and pressure that tried to crush her chest flat. Then the escape vessel. The other survivors. The launch that felt more like being shot from a cannon than any controlled evacuation.
And then—
Impact. The crater behind her. Snow and metal and the acrid smell of burning circuitry.
Now this.