The doors to Ronan’s quarters stood wide open, completely unguarded, a wide open yawning cavern, it looked like it was mocking him. Matthias stoodin the threshold for a full minute, doing nothing but breathing, his wolf at attention as he listened, but there was nothing, he couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in his ears, not the clatter of booted steps, or the echo of command. Not even the scent of Ronan’s presence, which had always lingered faintly in the air the bitter pine smell, all steel and smoke, as familiar to him as his own scent. It was gone now, faded like the boy had never been there at all. Matthias stepped inside, slowly, noting that the room was in pristine order, not a single item had been left out of place, and that told him more than any sign of chaos ever could. Ronan had cleaned up before he left, which meant he’d known exactly what he was doing. He’d probably planned all of this. Matthias’s hands flexed at his sides, the silence was unbearable, yet it wa
Raine was a mess of limbs and blood and trembling breath when he found her, slumped against the base of an old ash tree, her eyes glassy, dress torn and hands pressed protectively over the subtle swell of her belly like instinct had long since taken over where reason failed. The moon carved lines along her cheekbones, illuminating the smear of dirt and tears crusted over her skin. And yet, there was still something regal in the line of her spine, something stubborn in the way her body refused to fully collapse. She didn’t look up when he approached, not even when his boots crunched over the dried frost of the underbrush. Her fingers clenched tighter over her stomach, but otherwise, she didn’t move. Killian crouched in front of her slowly, giving her space. He shut his eyes and let her scent wash over him until he could practically taste it in the back of his throat, it was salt, grief, blood, and something unmistakably maternal. His wolf stirred. “You shouldn’t be out here alone,”
It wasn’t even the cold that got to her at first. Not the damp curl of mist sliding down her back, not the sting of ice across her cheeks, or the way the wind shredded through her thin dress like it wanted to skin her alive. No. What pierced first was quieter, and it was the silence. There had been no screaming, not from her or her accusers, no warning, not even the soft touch of fingers across her cheek to tell her goodbye. Just Thalia’s blank face in the moonlight and the slow, deliberate words that sealed her fate. You’re to leave. Banished, cast out, by order of the Elders, under Ronan’s command, without a trial, or a defense, and without Matthias. That was what gutted her more than anything, the alpha’s absence. He hadn’t even been there. He hadn’t known, he couldn’t have. She told herself that over and over as her feet carried her across the outer rim of the compound, stumbling through the fog, past the boundaries she once helped defend. The boots on her feet weren’t even
The snow had stopped falling hours ago, but the chill clung to the trees like breath on glass, ghosts in the pale wind. Matthias walked ahead of his men, heavy boots crunching over dead ice and rotted pine, his coat hung heavy with the reek of ash and steel and something else beneath, it was rage. He hadn’t shifted in days, he couldn’t afford to, he couldn’t trust the beast within him not to lose its mind the moment it hit open air. Not when everything had ended in failure again. The search had been a complete waste. The trail they’d been tracking near the Southern Range had dried up too quickly, and not naturally. Something, or someone had wiped it clean. There’d been no blood, or bodies and they hadn’t sighted any ash piles from rogue corpses. No sign of scavenger activity either, there was just… nothing. His soldiers had tried to tell him the terrain had shifted, hoping to convince him that the rogues were adapting faster, maybe they were even being warned in advance. But Matth
For some reason, Raine woke before the sun that morning, to the sound of the pounding on the roof, the rain having turned to snow sometime in the night with fleets of ice pounding against the window panes, hard enough to shatter the glass. But it wasn’t even that sound that woke her up first. It was something else, a shift in the quiet, like someone was holding their breath. It wasn’t even loud, or sudden, it was just wrong, like it shouldn’t be there. For a moment, she thought it was the wind outside, or the moan of the frost-stiff trees, maybe even the usual creak of the old house as it settled in the cold. But no it wasn’t any of that. There was someone in the room. Her eyes flew open, heart lurching to her throat as she pushed herself upright on instinct, breath caught in her chest like a bird in a trap. A figure stood just beyond the moonlight cutting through the curtains. Broad-shouldered and still, dressed in all black. In the haze of her fear, Raine registered that she knew
It hadn’t stopped raining in days. Ronan thought it was befitting the mood of the pack at the moment, and as the wind howled, it reflected the raging thoughts in Ronan’s mind. He wasn’t even sure if he was more livid or relieved. On one hand, he finally had an excuse to finally disregard his responsibility to Raine, and have Selene take her place, putting the final nails on the coffins of his plan to usurp his father’s position. On the other hand, Ronan was fucking pissed, it was one thing for his public mate to be sleeping around with other alphas, it was another to get fucking pregnant for them, and have the galls to keep it, walking around the pack house and carrying evidence of her misdeed, right under his nose, making Ronan look like a fool. The wind howled through the narrow halls like a living thing, dragging its claws across the old and creaking wood and whispering against the windowpanes like it was trying to get in. Ronan stood alone in the corridor outside their bedroo