THE SANCTUARY OF ROGUES

CHAPTER 3

Smoke hit my lungs before fear did—wildfire heat without flame. The snow was gone, replaced by warm soil and ash, as if winter had been scraped off the world. Above the treeline, the moon hung wrong: eclipsed, bruised, ringed with copper.

My wolf stirred, alert. The pendant my mother gave me pulsed in my fist, warm as skin. A key, she’d said. To survive.

A low growl rolled out of the trees.

I froze as the dark shifted and a man stepped into view like the shadows had decided to become solid. Tall. Broad. Black coat open at the throat. Hair like coal. But it was his eyes that stopped me—molten gold, wolf eyes, bright with control.

Rogue.

His gaze dropped to my fist. “That pendant. Where did you get it?”

“My mother,” I said, lifting my knife just enough to warn. “Who are you?”

His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Someone your pack lies about.”

He moved a step closer and I caught his scent—smoke, pine pitch, iron. My wolf leaned toward him with a pull I hated.

“You crossed a gate,” he said, glancing past me as if he could still see it. “Marrow Gate. That means you were either invited… or desperate.”

“I was rejected,” I forced out.

He inhaled once, slow. “By your mate.”

“Don’t,” I snapped. “Don’t say it like you know me.”

“You’re bleeding bond-scent,” he said. “Snapped but not severed. Fresh pain. Fresh anger.”

A branch snapped in the distance. Footsteps. More than one, fast.

“That’s impossible,” I whispered. “The gate—”

“Doesn’t always close clean,” he cut in. “Not on a night like yours.”

Then the wind turned and the scent hit like a fist—pine and storm and steel.

No. Not here.

“Kieran,” I breathed.

The rogue slid between me and the sound without hesitation. “So the Alpha Heir followed what he rejected.”

Kieran’s voice crashed through the trees, sharp with command and edged with something raw. “Aria!”

My body jolted. The Alpha tone hooked my wolf and my feet shifted one involuntary step—then pain speared my chest, hot and vicious, right where the bond still lived like a bruise. I gasped, folding.

Ash lifted at my boots.

Not a breeze. A response. It curled around my ankles like smoke finding bones.

The rogue’s gaze snapped down, then back up. “You’re doing that.”

“I’m not—” I rasped, clutching my chest.

He leaned close, voice dropping to a whisper meant only for me. “Black Moonwater wasn’t a curse. It was a claim.”

A shape moved between the trunks. Kieran stepped into the copper eclipse light, jacket open, hair wind-tossed from running. His eyes looked almost black here—storm-heavy and wild.

When he saw me, something in his face broke. Not tenderness—possession. Relief sharpening into anger.

“Aria,” he said again, softer. “Come here.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” I said, voice shaking anyway.

His gaze flicked to the man in front of me. “Move.”

The rogue didn’t. He held stillness like a weapon.

“This isn’t your territory,” Kieran snapped.

The rogue’s voice stayed calm. “It is now.”

Kieran’s jaw tightened. “Who are you?”

The rogue tilted his head, listening to something deeper than sound.

Then the forest shuddered.

A roar rose from behind Kieran—too deep to be a wolf, too old to be human. The ground vibrated under my boots. Ash shook loose from branches like black snow.

Kieran spun, eyes widening, and for the first time the Alpha Heir looked like a man who had walked into a story he didn’t control.

The rogue’s hand closed around my wrist—warm, steady, protective. “Now,” he breathed, pulling me backward.

“Where—” I started.

“The Moon didn’t choose you to belong to someone,” he said, dragging me into the trees. “It chose you to end something.”

The roar came again—closer.

And the shadows between the trees began to move.