Risa couldn’t breathe.She lay on her cot, staring at the beams above, and every inhale snagged in her chest. The barracks should have been safe—wolves sleeping steadily around her, the warm scent of woodsmoke and leather in the air—but she felt trapped. Every breath carried whispers. Every shadow carried suspicion.Liora’s eyes most of all.She didn’t need to hear the words spoken aloud. She felt them in the air, heavy as storm clouds: She knows. She’s watching.And Cael—Cael’s silence was worse. He looked at her too long, too steady, not with anger but with that cold, assessing weight that had made Shadowclaw bow to him. His wolf saw her. And Risa’s own wolf cowered.She stumbled through drills the next morning. Dropped her blade twice, missed a block, and clipped her own wrist. Maren barked her name sharp as steel. The others smirked, murmured, and shook their heads.She forced a laugh. A joke. A shrug. But her throat was dry, and her hands shook even as she sheathed her weapon.Wh
The scent hadn’t left him.All through drills, all through the council’s chatter, all through the quiet moments where he should have been focusing on Crescent’s needs, it haunted him. Ash. Stone. Iron. Faint, clinging, unnatural in the way it threaded through Liora’s cloak and hair.It wasn’t Crescent. It wasn’t Shadowclaw. It was older.And it had purpose.He remembered the pact-stones south of the river, their glyphs worn but not forgotten. As a boy, he had passed them on hunts and patrols, never sparing more than a glance. His father had taught him they were relics of wolves too weak to last. Symbols crumble. Strength endures. That had been the lesson.But the scent clinging to Liora’s cloak was the same as those stones.Which meant someone was weaving the old symbols into something new.Hale.Of course, it was Hale.Patience was his blade, manipulation his grip. If he had marked Liora, it wasn’t by accident. It was to tether her—to remind Cael with every breath that Hale’s hand
Cael had kissed her before.By the river, under the pull of moonlight, when the bond was still new and burning hot. That kiss had been wildfire—reckless, sharp, the kind that stole breath and demanded surrender. He had felt her wolf then, crying out in recognition, fierce and wild as his own. It had rattled him to the core.But tonight was different.Tonight, when her mouth met his, it wasn’t a blaze—it was an anchor. Steady. Rooted. He breathed her in—pine and steel and the faint edge of something he couldn’t name, something sharp on his tongue—and it struck him harder than any wound: this was home. Not a place. Not a pack. Her.He remembered the first time he’d noticed her scent in Crescent’s camp—fainter then, threaded with the uncertainty of a wolf who didn’t quite believe she belonged. Now it filled him whole, threaded into his veins until he couldn’t separate where his wolf ended and hers began.But he also remembered her silence.“Risa,” he had said, and though her lips had not
The spruce hollow still clung to her thoughts like sap.All day, her fingers remembered the feel of the ribbon—rough, waxed, marked with something that lingered even after she’d pulled away. She had scrubbed her hands at the cistern, even brushed the cloak along the stone edge of her bed, but she could not rid herself of the sense that it had left something behind.Her wolf paced. Not poison. Not wound. But something.Liora said nothing. Not to Elias, not to Cael. Especially not to Cael. His gaze was already too sharp on her, already searching for answers she wasn’t ready to give.Patience. Elias had taught her long ago that the first instinct was to strike—but the better instinct was to wait for the strike to expose itself.And yet, as she moved through Crescent’s yard that morning, the silence pressed hard. Every step felt heavier, every glance longer. Risa was unraveling in full view now—fumbling her blade again, snapping at a younger wolf, clutching her satchel like it contained h
Risa was slipping.Hale tasted it in the air before he saw it—the sour-sweet edge of fear that clung to a wolf who knew every direction led to teeth. Fear had a cadence; it shortened breaths, made steps hurry on the off-beat, left a thin metallic tang on the back of the tongue. Risa wore it like a second skin now.Useful. For a time.He crouched on a ridge above the southern lane, cloak drinking the fog, eyes on Crescent’s wall where torches shivered and stuttered in the damp. He had sent Risa a dozen small tasks, each sharper than the last, and watched as she wobbled along the line he’d drawn. She had fetched schedules, marked rotations, described the cadence of Cael’s watches, and the places Elias chose to stand when he wanted to look unafraid. She had been careful, almost elegant, at the beginning.Not now. Not since Liora’s attention had settled on her like a hunting hawk.Patience had always been Hale’s weapon. But patience with a fraying thread becomes folly. Threads snap at the
Risa could feel it shifting.The glances weren’t subtle anymore. Crescent wolves no longer looked through her—they looked at her, measuring, weighing, waiting. Even the younger ones, who once smiled at her easily, now dropped their voices when she passed. Every word felt like it carried her name, hidden just beneath the surface.She told herself it was paranoia. But paranoia was safer than ignorance.And worse than all of them combined were Liora and Cael.Something had changed between them.Risa didn’t need to see the way Cael’s hand lingered too long at Liora’s wrist, or the fire in Liora’s eyes softening only when he was near. The bond between them wasn’t just wolf to wolf—it had deepened into something that made the air shift when they stood too close.And that made everything harder.Because the stronger they grew together, the weaker her place became.At drills that morning, she dropped her blade again. It clattered across the stone, the sound ringing too loud in the yard. Maren