Se connecterMy burial day dawned bright and clear. The whole pack gathered on the hill overlooking the river. Everyone wore black. Some wore gray. A few of the older wolves painted their faces with ash. Kael carried my ashes in a carved wooden urn, his knuckles white around the handles.The pack elder spoke words over the grave. He called me a daughter of the moon. A wolf who had run her last run. He asked the ancestors to welcome me home.As they lowered the urn into the earth, I noticed Liam was missing. I scanned the crowd. Nothing. Then I saw movement at the edge of the tree line.He emerged from the shadows, dragging a bound figure behind him. Celeste. Her wrists were tied with silver rope. Her mouth was gagged. Her eyes were wide and wild with fear.Liam hauled her up the hill and threw her onto the ground in front of the grave. The pack fell silent."Kael," Liam said. "Are you ready?"Kael nodded. He stepped away from the grave and unbuttoned his black tunic. Beneath it, his chest was bare.
Kael fell to his knees beside my body. His wolf let out a low, keening whine that echoed through the room. "I am sorry," he whispered. His voice cracked. "I did not know. I swear by the Moon, I did not know.""Brother now?" Liam laughed, harsh and bitter. He stood over Kael with his arms crossed, his bruised knuckles still bleeding. "You are the one who threw her into the Shadow Keep. You signed the order. You told the guards to watch her every move. You called her insane when she was dying."Kael flinched but did not look up.Liam turned to Marcus. The healer sat slumped against the wall, his face buried in his hands. "And you. You are a healer. You should have seen she was sick. You should have felt her wolf fading. Instead, you agreed she was crazy. You stood there and told her the shadow sickness was a lie. You, of all people, should have known the truth."Marcus did not answer. His shoulders shook.Then Liam faced Sebastian. The Alpha had not moved from the floor. He sat with his
Liam carried my body down from the Moon Viewing Cliff. He sent a messenger bird to Kael with three words: Freya is gone.Kael arrived at the healing house before dawn. His boots were caked with mud. He had run the whole way. When he saw my body lying on the stone table, gray skinned and hollow cheeked, he stopped in the doorway. His wolf surged forward, then retreated. He could not shift. Could not move. Could not breathe."What... what happened?" His voice cracked. Inside his chest, something tore loose. The bond between us, the thread of pack blood that had tied him to me since we were pups, snapped. He felt it go. A pain like losing a limb.He lunged forward and gathered my body into his arms. I was light. Too light. He held me against his chest and roared. The windows rattled. Wolves in the village howled in answer, confused and afraid.His eyes found Liam, who stood against the wall with his arms crossed. "She was supposed to be in the Shadow Keep! You had no right to take her!""
Five days later, a hooded figure slipped past the guards outside my cell. I heard two soft thuds, then nothing. The iron door creaked open.Liam Vance stood in the shadows. He pressed a finger to his lips and knelt beside my straw bed. His hand found mine, warm and solid.He had drugged the guards with sleeping herbs mixed into their evening stew. The whole Keep would be unconscious until dawn. He had come alone, on foot, through the mountain pass in the dark.I had not seen Liam in years. We were litter mates at the pack training grounds when we were young. He was always quiet, always watching from a distance. The system had assigned him to me as one of my targets, but I could never get close to him. He avoided me at every turn. He sat with Celeste during meals. He walked beside her during the moon runs. Eventually, I gave up and moved on to Sebastian.I thought he hated me. I thought he had chosen her, like all the others.But now, in the dim light of my cell, his eyes held the same
The fall from the third floor did not kill me. It shattered my spine in two places and crushed my left hip. My legs would not move. The healers said I might never walk again. Internal bleeding turned my belly black. I lay on the stone table for three days, drifting in and out of consciousness, while they poured healing tonics down my throat.Kael was livid. His fury shook the walls of the healing house. He did not look at me with concern. He looked at me like a broken tool that had failed its purpose. Before the sun set on the day of my fall, he sent word to the pack council. He arranged for me to be transported to the Shadow Keep, a high mountain prison where the pack sent wolves who could not be controlled. Rogues. Mad ones. Traitors.Marcus agreed. He stood with his arms crossed, his face cold and blank. He said I was beyond help, that nothing in his healer's craft could reach me anymore. He did not argue. He did not hesitate.Sebastian came to see me before they took me away. He st
Marcus carried me back to the cold stone bed in the healing house. Sebastian followed close behind. When he looked at me, something like pain flickered across his face. Real or fake, I could no longer tell."How did you end up with the shadow sickness?" he asked. "You were always so full of light."I turned my face to the wall. I could not stand the sight of them. Not him. Not Marcus. Not Kael, who lingered by the door like a guilty pup.Sebastian grabbed my shoulders and forced me to face him. His grip was hard, almost desperate. "Look at me. You bribed the healers, did you not? Paid them to lie about your condition? This is just another one of your tricks."I said nothing. I used to explain. I used to beg them to believe me. But the more I explained, the more they thought I was lying. Every word out of my mouth only made me look guiltier in their eyes. Now I was done. There were no words left in me.Frustrated, Sebastian let go and stormed out of the room. His footsteps faded down th







