Chapter 3

Chapter Three — Scratches in the Silence

Jaxon Vale didn’t like loose ends.

Especially not the kind with storm-grey eyes and a past that kept vanishing every time he tried to follow it.

He stood in the security room on the first floor of the Vale Pack compound, watching grainy footage from last night’s rescue. In one video frame, Riley shifted mid-air, barely visible in the motion blur as she shielded the child with her body. In the next, she was already back in her human skin, eyes glowing like firelight.

She looked… raw. Powerful. Dangerous in a way that didn’t come from brute strength.

That was what worried him.

“You know she’s not telling you everything,” said Theo, his beta and childhood friend, standing beside him with arms folded.

“I know,” Jaxon said, dragging the timeline forward. “But she saved that kid. Broke her cover to do it.”

“Doesn’t mean she’s innocent.”

“No,” Jaxon murmured. “But it means she’s not heartless.”

He paused the video on her face — mid-turn, blood dripping from her shoulder, teeth bared. There was something else there. Not rage. Not fear.

Grief.

“She has a mark,” Jaxon added.

Theo raised an eyebrow. “Like the one from the East District victim?”

“Same shape. Same burn pattern.”

“You think Elias is back?”

Jaxon didn’t answer.

Because if Elias was back — if the banished Alpha who had nearly torn the Vale Pack apart five years ago was resurfacing — then Crescent City was in more trouble than anyone realized.

---

Riley couldn’t sleep.

She’d tried. She’d even meditated — or at least, what she assumed counted as meditating, which mostly involved lying on her back and glaring at the ceiling until her brain shut up.

It hadn’t worked.

Instead, she found herself wandering the halls of the packhouse at midnight, barefoot, hoodie zipped to her throat. The house was quiet. Too quiet. Wolves were supposed to live loud — howls, laughter, music. But here, everything was structured and soundproofed. Even the chaos had rules.

She crept downstairs and slipped out the side door, letting the cool night air clear her head. A wide courtyard sprawled between the compound and a tree-lined ridge. Moonlight glistened off slick stone, and crickets chirped like they hadn’t gotten the memo about city noise.

She sat on a bench near the edge and stared up at the sky. No stars. Too much light pollution.

Too much of everything.

“Trouble sleeping?” came a voice behind her.

Riley didn’t jump. She just sighed. “Do you make a habit of stalking people or am I just lucky?”

Jaxon stepped into view, wearing black joggers and a long-sleeved henley that did unfair things to his arms. His hair was a little messy, his expression unreadable.

“I noticed your door was open,” he said.

She snorted. “Creepy.”

“Responsible,” he countered.

They sat in silence for a long minute. Jaxon didn’t seem like the small-talk type. Riley appreciated that.

“I’m not staying,” she said eventually.

“That’s not your call.”

“Sure it is. I’m not part of your pack.”

“You are while you’re in our territory.”

“Then maybe I’ll leave the territory.”

He turned his head slowly. “Where will you go? Everyone’s seen the video. You won’t get ten blocks without being tracked.”

Riley stiffened. “I’ve been running longer than you’ve been Alpha-in-waiting.”

“I’m not trying to control you,” Jaxon said, voice surprisingly gentle. “I’m trying to stop people from dying.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“There was another attack. Yesterday. A teenager from the East District. Same symptoms — drained, comatose, rune carved into his shoulder.” He paused. “Same mark that’s on you.”

Riley’s heart twisted.

“Was he…?” She didn’t finish the question.

“Still alive. Barely.”

She swallowed. “That mark — it isn’t what you think.”

“Then tell me what it is.”

She looked away.

Jaxon didn’t press.

Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Handed it to her.

“What’s this?”

“Something we found on the victim’s skin. Etched under the rune.”

Riley unfolded it.

The handwriting was jagged. Scratched.

The rogue rises, and the bloodline falls. Fire will choose the broken one.

Her hands went cold.

“You’ve seen this before,” Jaxon said softly.

Riley nodded, once. Then twice.

“Where?”

“On a body,” she whispered. “Five years ago.”

---

Back inside the compound, Lena was awake too.

She sat cross-legged on the library floor, surrounded by stacks of books. Old ones. Pack records, historical logs, even some outlawed magical theory texts she’d “borrowed” from the restricted wing.

She was looking for anything on the prophecy Riley had just whispered to her half an hour ago — too shaken to say it in front of Jaxon, too tired to keep pretending she wasn’t connected to all of this.

Lena was good at research. Better than most pack elders gave her credit for.

She flipped through an ancient tome and paused on a page half-rotted with age.

There — in the margins — was a scribbled note.

The Flame-Born will come from exile. One scarred, one spared. A heart unchained shall heal the pack or burn it down.

Lena snapped a photo and emailed it to herself.

Then, just as she was about to close the book, a breez

e stirred the pages.

Even though the windows were shut.

And on the floor beside her, burned into the hardwood —

A single, glowing rune.