FAZER LOGINThe training ring felt too small.Too many wolves had gathered, forming a circle around the dirt arena, their expressions tight with curiosity and tension. The evening sun hung low behind the trees, casting long shadows that stretched like claws across the ground.Lyra stood at the edge, half-hidden behind a post, watching.She hadn’t meant to linger. She had only wanted to confirm what her instincts already knew, that Morrigan’s poison had spread deep enough to reach the pack’s strongest wolves.But now she couldn’t look away.Darius remained in the center of the ring, his shoulders squared, his chin lifted in challenge. His voice still echoed in the air.A leader cannot be distracted.The implication was clear.Ronan’s gaze stayed locked on him, unreadable, his posture calm but dangerous. The alpha looked like stone: still, solid, unmovable.Yet Lyra could sense what lay beneath.A beast pressing against a cage.Around them, warriors shifted uneasily. Some looked uncomfortable, but
Morrigan moved like smoke through Silvercrest.Quiet. Smooth. Impossible to grab.Lyra noticed it the moment the sun rose fully over the treeline. The pack wasn’t simply watching her anymore. They were discussing her openly, and the tone had shifted from fear into accusation.What is she?But what is she doing to our Alpha?Lyra felt it in the way mothers pulled their pups closer when she passed. She heard it in the way warriors stopped laughing when she approached. Even wolves who once nodded at her with cautious respect now looked away as if her presence carried corruption.She knew whose hands were shaping the air.Morrigan didn’t need to shout.She didn’t need to openly accuse.She planted poison like seeds and let the pack grow it for her.Lyra kept her head high as she crossed the main path toward the water well. Two scouts trailed her again, keeping their distance but never leaving her line of sight. Their shadows moved with hers like unwanted companions.When Lyra reached the
Lyra returned to her cabin before dawn, but sleep didn’t follow her.The forest’s cold still clung to her cloak, and the scent of Ronan’s touch lingered on her skin like a brand. Even after she scrubbed her wrist with water until it turned red, the heat of the bond remained.It wasn’t physical warmth.It was something deeper, something threaded into her blood.When Ronan had grabbed her at the ridge, the mate mark had flared so violently she had nearly cried out. The surge hadn’t faded afterward. It had stayed, simmering beneath her skin, humming through her veins like a storm that refused to break.Lyra paced her cabin until the floorboards creaked beneath her boots.She tried to focus on logic.On the altered markings.On the sabotage.But her thoughts kept sliding back to Ronan’s hand around her wrist.The way he had held on too long.The way his eyes had darkened like he was fighting himself.Lyra pressed her palm against her mark again.It pulsed.Not faintly.Strong.Demanding.
The pack’s whispers followed Lyra all day.After the gathering, she couldn’t walk across Silvercrest without hearing fragments of conversation snap shut behind her. Wolves didn’t hide their fear anymore. They didn’t pretend she was simply another member of the pack.They looked at her like she was a storm waiting to destroy them.And worse than their fear was their confidence.As if the council’s words had given them permission to judge her openly.Lyra spent the afternoon pretending she didn’t care.She trained until her muscles burned, forcing sweat to drown out anger. She worked through Tobias’s breathing techniques, forcing her aura to stay tight beneath her skin. She refused to give them another excuse.But the entire time, her thoughts kept circling one thing.The border markings.The altered signs she had already seen once.If someone was manipulating patrol paths, then the changes would continue. They wouldn’t stop simply because wolves were afraid. They would grow bolder.Lyr
Lyra felt the shift before anyone said a word.After the training ground incident, the air around Silvercrest changed. Wolves moved differently. Conversations stopped when she passed. Eyes followed her with sharper awareness, not just fear but calculation.The pack wasn’t only watching her anymore.They were watching Ronan.Lyra noticed it first at the morning gathering.The elders sat in their usual place near the council platform, cloaked in ceremonial robes that marked them as law and tradition. Their faces remained calm, but their gaze kept drifting toward the Alpha’s entrance, waiting.Morrigan stood at their side, hands folded neatly, her posture graceful and controlled. She looked like loyalty carved into flesh, the perfect Beta beside her pack’s leadership.But Lyra had seen the ink in the margins.She had seen the hidden instructions.Morrigan’s calm was not peace.It was strategy.Ronan arrived late.The moment he stepped into the gathering circle, the mate bond reacted in L
Lyra didn’t sleep.She returned to her cabin with Ronan’s words still burning in her ears, and the mate bond still humming beneath her skin like a wound that refused to close. The moment she shut her door, she pressed her palm against her wrist, feeling the mark pulse faintly as if it were alive.It wasn’t broken.It had never been.It was only restrained, buried under rejection and pride, and now it was clawing its way back to the surface.Lyra sat on the edge of her bed for a long time, staring at the floorboards, listening to the distant sounds of the pack settling for the night. Every creak outside made her tense. Every whisper of wind against the window felt like someone watching.She hated that Ronan’s warning had made sense.She hated that fear was no longer a distant possibility but a shadow attached to her heels.By dawn, her anger had turned sharper.Clearer.If Ronan refused to stand beside her, then she would stand alone.She left her cabin early, before the pack fully wok







