The smell of blood was thick in the clearing, not just wolf blood, but something older, sharper, magic that clung to my tongue like rust and ozone. The ash circle had collapsed, but its stink lingered, a reminder that this wasn’t just an encounter. This was a declaration of war.Kyle’s men were regrouping in the treeline, shadows moving between the trees, weapons glinting faintly in the moonlight. Their discipline was unnerving; they didn’t scatter like rogues. They moved with the precision of soldiers who believed they were righteous.And they wanted Ivy dead. My wolf pressed hard against my skin, snarling for release. I had kept him leashed through the chaos, but with Ivy limp in my arms, blood on her lips, and Kyle barking orders to “bring me the hybrid’s head,” something inside me snapped.A cold sound tore from my chest, half-human, half-beast, and the world bled red.My claws extended in a spray of sparks, and I lunged. The first guard barely had time to raise his crossbow bef
The ash circle was screaming, The sigils also carved into the earth bent like live serpents, violet light crackling and spitting sparks. The smell of scorched iron and ash filled the air so thick it burned my throat. I could barely hear over the roar in my own head, the clash of wolf and witch blood pounding like war drums through my veins.Kyle’s voice cut through it all like a blade. “Execute her now!”The words lashed across me, cold and merciless, and I froze.Damon moved before anyone else. One moment he was behind me, his body a wall of heat; the next, he surged forward, his growl shaking the very ground. Guards hesitated, the Alpha’s presence enough to send them stumbling back, but Kyle’s barked order spurred them on.The first crossbow bolt hissed through the air. Damon caught it mid-flight, snapping the shaft in one hand. He shoved me behind him, his voice was sharp.“Stop!"I dropped low as a second bolt flew, bolts clattering against the circle’s invisible barrier. The s
Accept or BreakThe ash circle was alive, clawing at me the moment my boots crossed its edge. The air inside tasted like iron and old storms, the kind that split trees and left craters smoldering. My wolf snarled, battering against my ribs, demanding I tear Jace limb from limb. But the circle was not soil or stone, it was will. It pressed, it tested, it demanded. And I knew exactly what it wanted, a bare truth, not a half one or strategy. Not the kind of polished lie I had fed my council, my enemies, and sometimes myself. The circle wanted marrow-deep honesty, stripped and bleeding. Anything less and it would eat me alive.I stumbled a step, my knees bowing under the pulse of the runes. They weren’t violet anymore; they shimmered in sickly silver, like my bond with Ivy had fused with the ritual’s pulse.Jace’s voice cut through, sharp and deliberate. “The circle won’t tolerate silence, Alpha. It knows deceit, it knows the ditch. Give it the truth or it will take you both.”His eyes
The ash circle burned against the ground like it had been waiting for me all my life. Even before my foot crossed its line, my lungs pulled tight as though something unseen had cinched a rope around them.Jace stood at the far end, one hand hovering just above the traced runes that pulsed a sickly violet. His dark eyes didn’t glitter with triumph, worse, they steadied with the kind of calm a surgeon wears before the first incision.He wasn’t claiming me but he was anchoring me. “Don’t fight it, Ivy,” his voice carried low, a steady pulse through the storm of whispers coiling inside the circle. “This isn’t theft, this is the unveiling.”The ash hissed under my boots as if it knew my weight, my blood. The moment I stepped fully across, the world vibrated.My body was no longer just mine. My wolf slammed forward, snarling at the confinement, while something else, sharper, colder, familiar in a way that terrified me, rose like smoke through my bones. The Witch-blood.The circle dragged t
The hex wasn’t just heat and light, it was alive. Every time I stepped closer, it rasped against my skin like invisible claws, tasting me, testing me. The stink of sulfur coated my tongue, thick and bitter, and every breath scraped like glass in my throat. My wolf lunged against the barrier anyway, smashing his weight into the unseen wall until the air itself vibrated. For a heartbeat, I swore I heard voices inside the hex, whispering, chanting, the echo of old oaths carved by men who thought they could outlast time. The sound coiled through me, threatening to unravel bone from marrow. Still, I pressed closer.The Council’s wards. Kyle’s damnable craft. And worse, anchored by something I couldn’t name.Gemma skidded to my side, hair torn from its braid, sweat streaking her temple. “They sealed the perimeter, only the Elders can breach. It’s designed to choke you out before you touch it.”I bared my teeth at the glow. “Then I’ll choke it back.”But the truth was written in my shakin
Bait and TruthThe abandoned chapel stood like a scar on the edge of the Thorne. Its broken spire jutted against the night sky, black stone biting into the silver wash of moonlight. I had chosen it for exactly that reason, it was visible enough to draw him, but broken enough to hide things the light couldn’t reach. My footsteps echoed hollow against the ruined floorboards as I set the last candle down, its glow spilling into the cracked glass of a window.I wasn’t here to pray, I was here to gamble. The parchment wards I had scrawled with my mother’s ink lay faint across the doors, just enough to slow, not to trap. Jace would smell a trap and laugh. But an open wound? That drew predators.The air shifted before he spoke. A shadow detached itself from the apse, smooth, precise, and patient.“You light a church for me, little wolf,” Jace said, voice dipped in amusement, but too sharp at the edges. His coat whispered as he stepped closer, silver threading the seams. His eyes found the f