MasukKai's POVI couldn't sleep.The ceiling above me was the same one I'd stared at for years—wooden beams, smoke-darkened, familiar as my own heartbeat. But tonight it looked different. Everything looked different.Beside me, Aria breathed slow and steady, her body curled toward mine, one hand resting on my chest. She'd fallen asleep within minutes of lying down, exhaustion finally claiming her after hours of tending wounds and organizing supplies and holding the pack together. I was glad she could rest. Glad someone could.I stared at the beams and tried to feel something.Alistair was dead.I'd watched Sylvie drive the blade into his throat. Watched the life drain from his eyes. Watched the monster who'd haunted our family for years become just another corpse on the floor.And I felt... nothing.Not relief. Not joy. Not even the satisfaction I'd imagined whenever I'd dreamed of this moment. Just hollow. Empty. Like someone had scooped out everything inside me and left only the shell.I
Finn's POVThe column stretched out behind me, a ragged line of exhausted wolves moving through grey dawn light. We'd been walking for hours, though it felt like days. The stronghold was a smudge of smoke on the horizon behind us, and ahead, nothing but trees and hills and the long road home.I walked near the middle, where I could see most of the pack without having to turn my head. It was a habit from the academy—always position yourself where you can observe. Aria had taught us that. She'd taught us a lot of things.Speaking of Aria, she walked ahead with Kai, her father between them, supporting him when he stumbled. Her face was closed, focused on the next step and the next. She hadn't spoken to him since their conversation by the wall. Not that I'd heard, anyway. But she hadn't left him either. That counted for something.Behind me, Kira and Mira walked with Koren between them. Koren had taken a wound during the fighting—nothing serious, but it had bled more than it should have,
Aria's POVI held my father for a long timeLong enough that the world faded—the crackle of flames, the shouts of wolves, the moans of the wounded. I snapped back and let go Father, I need you to sit here. Right here, against this wall." My voice came out steady, "Don't move and don't try to help. Just rest. I'll come back."I turned away before the cold thing in my chest could speak.The courtyard was chaos.Bodies lay everywhere—some still, some moving, some crying out for help I wasn't sure I could give. Wolves from our pack, yes, but also Alistair's soldiers, wounded and abandoned by their fleeing comrades. They lay where they'd fallen, bleeding into the stones, their eyes wide with fear as they watched me approach.Kira appeared at my side, blood streaked across her face "Where do we start?""Triage." I replied "Ours first, then theirs. Find Mira and Koren, we need everyone who can hold a bandage."I knelt beside the nearest wolf—Fen, his arm opened to the bone by a sword strok
Kai's POVI watched Sylvie walk away from Alistair's body, her face a mask of emptiness that scared me more than any expression of grief ever could. She didn't look back. Didn't spare the corpse a single glance. She just walked, blade still dripping, toward the far end of the hall where shadows pooled against the stone."Sylvie." I called after her. "Where are you going?""To see what else he left behind." Her voice was flat. Hollow. "There will be cells. Prisoners. He always kept prisoners."I looked back at the body one more time. Alistair. Dead. After everything—the years of terror, the attacks on our pack, the cage he'd kept my sister in for eleven years—he was just a corpse on the floor. Blood pooling. Eyes staring at nothing.It didn't feel like victory.I caught up to Sylvie in three long strides. "Wait. We'll go together."She didn't argue and didn't even acknowledge me at all. Just kept walking.The keep opened into a narrow corridor lined with doors—storage rooms, maybe, or
Sylvie's POVI left Kai behind subconsciously, the moment the keep doors came into view, something feral took over. Eleven years of captivity. Eleven years of waiting. Eleven years of dreaming about this moment in a dark cell where the only light came from the cracks in the walls and the only sound was my own breathing.He was in there, I could feel it.The corridors blurred past me. Fen and Liv tried to keep up—I heard their footsteps, and sharp breaths. The burning stronghold roared around me, smoke curling along the ceiling, embers drifting down like dark snow. Somewhere behind, the sounds of battle continued. Shouts. Steel on steel. The dying screams of men who had chosen the wrong side.I didn't care about any of them.The keep's entrance loomed ahead, a massive archway carved with wolves and trees—Alistair's sigil, the symbol of everything he'd stolen, without checking for guards I ran through… The great hall stretched before me, empty except for the man standing at its center.
Kai's POVThe side entrance groaned open, stone grinding against stone, and suddenly there was nothing between us and the enemy's heart.I lunged through the gap before it was fully wide, blade up, shoulders tight. The corridor beyond was narrow—built for servants, not soldiers—and it opened into a wider passage maybe twenty feet ahead, shadows moved there and there were voices, raised in alarm."Go, go, go!" I shouted behind me, not slowing.Footfalls echoed off the stone as the pack poured through. Aria's students—Kira, Mira, Koren—were somewhere in the middle of the column, and I trusted they'd stay close to the fighters who could protect them, my job was to clear the way.I hit the wider passage at a sprint and found chaos waiting.Alastair's troops had been caught mid-transition. Some were still pulling on armor, swords half-drawn. Others had formed a loose battle line, but it was ragged and unprepared. The shouts from the main gate had pulled most of their attention so they had







