Knotted By The Three Feral Alphas

"You’re under Nils’s roof, not free on the docks. You watch, you learn the marks, you don’t start a fight with a coastal crew because their form looks different from Johan’s. If Harald asks why Frostfang sent a young wolf instead of a captain, you tell him I don’t waste captains on education I can buy with someone who still has room in her head for new routes.".

Astrid’s face opened. "I won’t waste it."

"You’d better not. Sigrid will put you on ash-hauling until spring if you do."

"I will," Sigrid confirmed.

Astrid went—fast, before I could add conditions. Sigrid watched her disappear down the stair and then looked at me.

"You’re softer with her than with the Hauge boy."

"Astrid doesn’t swing on pack-mates when her feelings are hurt. She brings me satchels at dawn." I rubbed my eyes. "If she turns this into theatre, I’ll take the softness back. Until then she gets the road."

Sigrid made a mark on her slate. "I’ll tell Anders. He’ll want a coastal bird arranged for her check-in."

"Do that."

She left. Behind the door Magnus called, muffled, "You’re building a court whether you mean to or not."

"I’m building a morning," I said, and went to find clothes that didn’t still smell of sweat.

---

The keep ate breakfast in shifts. I took mine standing in the map room with Anders and a cup that had gone lukewarm while we talked through the inland loop schedules.

William Hauge’s name came up once—Johan reported the rails were finished and the correction course was cutting the arrogance down without killing the useful parts.

Lucas Ruud had asked to run paired drills again. I said yes to both and moved on.

Erik Lund put his head in long enough to say the north ridge markers were weather-sound.

Hermine Haugen had sent a complaint about apprentices cutting through her drying lines.

I sent a note back with a junior that the drying lines had right of way and the apprentices could learn the long path around.

Ordinary blades. Ordinary edges. The kind of morning that used to feel like waiting for the real work to start and now was the work.

Magnus found me near the training yard rail when the first drills opened. He leaned on the wood beside me and watched Johan put a group of yearlings through a turn they kept missing.

"Astrid’s gone?" he asked.

"Before the sun cleared the wall."

"Harald will like her or she’ll drive him to the docks. No middle."

"Nils will buffer. He’s had practice with difficult Frostfang energy."

Magnus’s mouth tipped. "Including yours."

"Including mine."

We stood in the cold and watched a yearling finally take the turn clean. Johan didn’t praise. The yearling glowed anyway.

Further out, William ran laterals with his jaw set and his form tighter than it had been the week before.

Lucas matched him without looking over. The yard smelled of wet wool and churned snow and the sharp note of young effort.

"I’m going out to the east dens this afternoon," I said. "Walk through. Not a full inspection. Hermine’s been civil and the drain still isn’t fixed."

"Want company."

"Want you to sit on the hall if anyone decides a quiet day is a good day to invent a grievance."

"I can do that." He watched the yearlings another moment. "You’re restless."

"I’m fine."

"You’re restless," he said again, milder. "Sending Astrid coastward. Walking dens you could summon here. It’s not a criticism."

I didn’t have a clean answer for that, so I didn’t invent one. The yearling missed the next turn. Johan’s voice carried across the packed snow, flat and endless.

---

The east dens sat lower than the main keep, where the ground softened and the houses crowded closer to share heat.

I walked without a full escort—Anders had one pair on a loose shadow I was allowed to pretend I didn’t notice. People came to doorways.

A few peeled off to walk a stretch beside me with small needs: a shared fence leaning the wrong way, a request to move a first-shift practice, a question about the spring hunt’s outer markers that I answered without turning it into a council item.

Hermine Haugen had her washing up again despite the cold. She took one look at me and pointed a wet finger toward the drain ditch behind her row.

"Still a ditch. Still full of things that aren’t water."

"Anders has it on the list."

"Anders has had it on the list since your mother was still running the north ridge first." Hermine wrung a cloth hard. "I’m not blaming you for a ditch. I’m telling you the ditch is older than your patience and it will still be here when you’ve got grey in your hair unless someone puts backs into it instead of slate marks."

"I’ll put backs into it this week."

"See that you do." She hung the cloth. "Heard you sent the Noren girl to the coast."

"I did."

"Good. That one needs more world and less yard. Same as you did, once." Hermine’s eyes creased. "Don’t tell Sigrid I said that. She’ll put me on a list."

"Your secret’s safe."

I walked the ditch myself before I left. It was exactly as unpleasant as Hermine had promised. I put three names against it in my head and went back up toward the keep with the smell of stagnant water in my nose and the useful irritation of a problem that could be solved with shovels instead of language.

---

Mid-afternoon brought a rider I didn’t expect.

Not coastal. Not inland loop. A young woman on a long-legged horse with Eidsmark’s mountain mark on her saddlecloth and a face pink from hard riding.

She dismounted in the yard as if she had done it in better courts and worse weather, tossed the reins to the first stable hand who came close, and looked around until she found me on the steps.

"Karin Eide," she said. "My father sends respect and a request that isn’t urgent enough for a formal banner. You’re Lila."

"I am."

"Good. I was told you’d be the one in the yard who looked busy without performing it." She pulled a wrapped bundle from her saddlebag.

"Horses. We’ve got a line of yearlings better suited to your ridge paths than our high meadows. Father wants to know if Frostfang will take a small string in exchange for winter grain weight and a place in your spring training rotation for two of our young ones. I’m here to see your ground and your form before he commits anything with four legs." She added.

Sigrid had materialized. Anders too. Karin looked at both of them without wilting.

"I don’t need a hall reception," she added. "I need to see how you run your horses and whether your Johan Berg is as unpleasant about form as the stories say."

Johan, within earshot on the yard rail, didn’t turn. "The stories are soft."

Karin’s mouth flashed a grin. "Perfect."

I felt Magnus’s attention from the upper walk without needing to see him. This wasn’t a crisis. It wasn’t a slight. It was a mountain Alpha’s daughter with a trade in her bag and enough nerve to deliver it herself.

"You’ll stay under our roof," I said. "You’ll see the ridge paths tomorrow with Erik. You’ll watch Johan’s afternoon drills today. If the yearlings suit and the grain weight is honest, we’ll talk numbers that don’t waste either of our fathers’ time—or ours."

"Your mother and my father traded once when I was small," Karin said. "He still talks about her seat on a horse. I’m told you sit differently."

"I sit like someone who learned the ridges first and the ceremonies second."

"Even better." Karin handed the bundle’s contents—a set of clean breeding marks and a short count—to Sigrid without being asked. "I’ll find the stables. Your hand looked like he knew what he was doing."

She went. Sigrid stared at the counts. Anders stared at me.

"Eidsmark doesn’t send the Alpha’s daughter for small strings unless they’re testing more than horses," Anders said quietly.

"Then they can test. We’re not inventing a slight where someone offered grain and young wolves." I watched Karin disappear toward the stables with her satchel and her mountain boots. "Put her in a real room. Tell Johan to be exactly as unpleasant as usual. If she wants soft stories she can go home."

---

Evening put Karin at the side of the main table, not the high seats, arguing with Johan about lateral turns until half the nearby benches were listening. She was wrong about two things and right about one, and she admitted the wrong ones without theatre. Astrid would have liked her. I filed that for the coastal bird.

Magnus ate beside me and stole from my plate out of habit. "You’re collecting difficult women."

"Sigrid was here first."

"Sigrid doesn’t grin when Johan insults her."

"Sigrid insults him back. Different breed." I drank.

The hall noise was ordinary and layered—drills still in someone’s shoulders, the drain on my list, Astrid somewhere on the water road with Nils’s marks, Karin Eide already making the yard more interesting than it had been at dawn.

"Tomorrow she rides the ridge with Erik. If she keeps up, the string is worth the grain." I added finally.

"And if she doesn’t?"

"Then we still feed her and send her home with an honest no. Eidsmark didn’t ask for flattery."