8. Chapter

Corin

The mocking laughter of the ballroom was still ringing in my ears, but my body was already reacting on pure instinct. I dragged myself up from the marble floor and did not look back. I did not look at Glacier, who was embracing his “perfect” match, and I did not look at the empty doorway where Mason had left. Only one thing existed in my mind: my mother.

I ran through the dark corridors toward the servants’ wing. My lungs burned, and in my throat the taste of tears mixed with blood. When I tore open the door to my mother’s room, she was already standing by the bed with a small bundle in her hands. She was trembling, her face deathly pale. She had heard the roar from the great hall. She had heard the rejection.

“We have to run, Mother!” I gasped, grabbing her bony hand. “They’ve cast me out. We have one hour before they turn us into prey.”

“Corin, my little girl… your back…” she reached toward me, but I pulled away.

“There’s no time. Let’s go!”

I dragged her out through the rear exit and straight into the freezing night. The Silver Stone pack’s territory was vast; miles of dense pine forest and rocky ground separated us from the border. I knew that in an hour, on human feet, with a weakened woman and a shattered soul, we had no chance of getting out. But we had to try.

As we started running along the forest path, the gaping void in my chest—the place where the bond had been torn out—twitched with every step, as if a knife were being twisted inside it. Glacier’s rejection was not just emotional pain; it was physical agony, consuming me from within.

And then there was my back.

The ointment Glacier had given me—the one I thought was helping me heal—began to burn. The cool relief was replaced by a searing, corrosive sensation. The wounds were not healing at all; they were flaring up beneath my dress as if set on fire. There had to be poison in that cream, something that blocked my wolf’s self-healing power. Glacier had not wanted to help me; he had wanted to prolong my suffering so I would remain weak at the ball.

“Just… a little more, Mother…” I groaned as branches lashed against my face.

My mother was panting, her feet stumbling over roots. I was practically dragging her along, even as my vision blurred from the pain. Pus and blood from my back soaked through the golden gown, which had by now turned into a filthy, reeking rag.

“Corin, leave me…” my mother whispered when we had reached the third kilometer. “Go on alone. You’re faster…”

“Never!” I shouted back, my voice breaking. “If I have to, I’ll carry you on my back, but I will not leave you to them!”

Then it happened.

A distant, deep, bone-chilling howl tore through the silence of the night. Then came another, closer. Then another.

The hour was up.

The Silver Stone pack had begun the hunt. I heard the dogs too—the beasts bred specifically to track down “runaways” and “traitors.” In the moonlight, I saw shadows moving between the trees far behind us.

“They’re here!” my mother screamed when a dark shape flashed across the path a hundred meters away.

Rage and desperation surged through me with such primal force that my body began to shake. My back was burning, my soul was bleeding, but my eighteen-year-old wolf was finally fully awake. She was not weak. She was like a storm locked in a cage, desperate to break free and tear apart anyone who dared come near us.

“Run, Mother! Don’t look back!” I roared, stopping in front of a rock and turning to face the forest.

Yellow eyes began to flicker in the darkness. I heard the pounding of heavy paws on the frozen forest floor. Lumi’s mocking laughter drifted somewhere in the distance on the wind. The hunt had begun, and we were the prey.

But as I stood there, I felt something else stirring in my blood. Not the scent of the Silver Stone pack.

Something heavier. Leaden. Carrying the scent of pine and rain—an overwhelming presence seeping in from the direction of the border.