Chapter 9: The perimeter guards

FAYE'S POV

I'd been following the stream for perhaps two hours when I first sensed them.

It wasn't a sound that alerted me—the water rushing over rocks was too loud for that, drowning out most other auditory information. It was something else. Something in the way the forest seemed to shift around me. The way the air changed texture. The way my wolf, even in her dulled, fractured state, lifted her damaged head and made a sound of warning that came out as barely more than a whisper.

Hunters.

The realization sent a spike of adrenaline through my chest that almost felt like feeling something again. Almost broke through the numbness that had settled over me during my flight into the wilderness.

They were still distant—far enough away that I couldn't see them, couldn't hear them over the sound of the water. But I could smell them now that I knew what to look for. The particular scent signature of the Obsidian Peak pack, mixed with the sharper scent of pursuit. They'd picked up my trail already.

Of course they had. How stupid of me to think I had more time.

I increased my pace, my legs pumping harder despite the fatigue that had been creeping into them for the past hour. The stream was getting rockier here, the water moving faster as it descended through increasingly steep terrain. I had to watch my footing carefully—one slip on the icy rocks and I'd be tumbling down the ravine, possibly breaking bones that would leave me completely defenseless.

Not that I was particularly defensible in my current state anyway.

My wolf was trying to wake up, trying to respond to the threat with the instincts that should have been automatic. But something was wrong with her. The broken bond had damaged her in ways that went beyond simple emotional trauma. She moved sluggishly in my chest, responding to danger with a fraction of the speed and certainty she should have possessed.

Rejection did this to wolves. I'd heard stories, whispered conversations among the pack's elder wolves about mates who'd been rejected and lost the ability to fight, to survive, to function. It was as if the severed bond took with it some essential spark of survival instinct.

But I couldn't afford to lose that spark. Not now. Not while hunters were closing in behind me.

I risked a glance over my shoulder and froze.

They'd crested the rise perhaps a hundred yards back, silhouetted against the pale moonlight. Three of them, moving in the coordinated pattern of practiced hunters. Two in their wolf forms—massive, dark shapes that moved with predatory grace—and one still in human form, directing them with hand signals and sharp whistles that carried across the forest despite the sound of the water.

Lydia's voice carried to me, thin but unmistakable: "She went toward the ravine. Cut off at the western bend."

Of course she'd come herself. Of course she wouldn't trust this to random pack members. This was personal for her—the elimination of the girl who'd dared to claim her half-brother, who'd disrupted her carefully planned evening.

I turned and ran.

It was no longer possible to follow the stream carefully, picking my way across the slippery rocks. Speed was more important now than safety. I moved recklessly down the ravine, my cloak catching on branches, my feet sliding on frost-covered stone. Once, I nearly fell, my hands grabbing at a root just in time to arrest my downward momentum. The root tore free from the earth, and I tumbled backward several feet before catching myself against a rock.

Pain exploded in my left side—a rib, probably. Maybe more than one. But the pain was almost welcome because it meant I could still feel something. Meant I wasn't completely numb.

Behind me, I could hear them entering the ravine. The sound of their pursuit was getting closer, the distance narrowing with every minute that passed. The two wolves in their transformed states were faster than me, stronger than me, better equipped for this kind of terrain.

I was running out of time.

The ravine was getting steeper, the water below me churning with increasing violence as the stream encountered a series of drop-offs. The rocks here were larger, more dangerous, creating a treacherous landscape that would be impassable for anything that wasn't desperately trying to survive.

I pushed myself harder, ignoring the sharp pain in my ribs, ignoring the burning in my lungs, ignoring the voice in my head that was suggesting, quite reasonably, that running was futile.

My wolf wasn't helping. That was the worst part. She was still so damaged from the rejection that she couldn't muster the kind of desperate defiance that survival required. She was fading, dying, pulling deeper into herself as if accepting that our end was simply inevitable.

I wanted to scream at her, to shake her awake, to demand that she fight back. But I didn't have the breath or the energy for that conversation.

The ravine opened suddenly onto a cliff face.

I nearly ran straight off it.

I skidded to a stop, my arms windmilling, my feet scrambling for purchase on the slippery rock. Below me, I could see the stream making a dramatic drop—perhaps thirty feet—into a narrow pool that churned with white water and dangerous currents. The pool was surrounded by jagged rocks that would shred flesh like paper.

A dead end.

"There," Lydia's voice called from behind me, triumphant. "Cut off."

I turned slowly, my back now against the cliff face, and faced my hunters.

Lydia stood perhaps twenty feet away, still in her human form, her honey-blonde hair catching the moonlight. Behind her, the two massive wolves shifted slightly, their eyes reflecting the pale light with predatory intensity. They were huge—Obsidian Peak bred for size and strength, and these two were among the pack's finest.

I was no match for them. Even with a functioning wolf, I wouldn't have been.

"Hello, sister," Lydia said, and her voice was sweet. Almost gentle. "You caused quite a disruption tonight. The alpha is very disappointed in you."

"I didn't do anything," I said, my voice barely steady. "The bond—it was real. You had to have felt it too. Everyone in that hall felt it."

"The bond was an embarrassment," Lydia corrected, taking a step forward. The wolves matched her movement, closing the distance incrementally. "A servant girl presuming to claim an heir. The alpha was right to have you removed."

"Ethan felt it," I said, and even as the words left my mouth, I knew they were a lie. "You know he did. His wolf recognized—"

"His wolf is his responsibility," Lydia interrupted, her perfect face arranging itself into an expression of mock concern. "And he's made his choice very clear. You're not welcome in this pack, Faye. You never were."

She lifted her hand, and the wolves tensed, preparing to lunge.

This was it, then. This was how it would end. Not with slow fading from a broken bond, but with violence. With my illegitimate body being torn apart by the pack I'd served and been rejected by.

At least it would be quick.

My wolf made one final, desperate surge—not to fight, but to find a way out. Any way out. She pushed me backward, toward the cliff edge, toward the dangerous water below.

And I let her.

Better to risk the rocks and the current than face those teeth.

I turned and stepped off the cliff.