Chapter 3: The Clash of Tribes

(Penny’s POV)

I should have kept running.

I should have found a thicker cluster of trees, a hollow log, anything that would swallow me whole and let me disappear until this nightmare decided to spit me back into my armchair with the laptop still warm on my lap.

But my legs were jelly. My lungs felt like they’d been scrubbed with steel wool. And the howls, God, the howls, were everywhere now. Not just behind me. Not just ahead. They wrapped around me like smoke, coming from every direction at once. I pressed my back against the rough bark of an ancient pine and tried to make myself small. Invisible. Nonexistent.

It didn’t work.

Through the gaps in the branches, I could see the clearing I’d stumbled out of minutes ago. The village. The war.

I shouldn’t have looked.

But I did.

The scene was worse up close, even from this distance. The dark gray and black wolves, Silverfang, I knew their colors from my own manuscript, moved like liquid shadow. Coordinated. Ruthless. Their alpha, a massive beast with a notched ear and scars crisscrossing his muzzle, tore through three Crimson Claw wolves in the time it took me to blink. Blood sprayed in dark arcs that caught the strange, too-bright moonlight and glittered like spilled ink.

The Crimson Claw pack was smaller but fiercer, red-brown fur flashing like embers. They fought dirty: going for throats, hamstrings, eyes. One of them, a lean female with white streaks on her flanks, leapt onto the back of a Silverfang warrior and clamped her jaws around his neck. He thrashed, yelped once, went still.

Humans, actual villagers, huddled in doorways and behind overturned carts. A woman clutched two children to her chest, her mouth open in a silent scream. An old man brandished a pitchfork like it might actually do something against claws and fangs. It didn’t. A passing wolf swatted him aside like a doll. He hit the ground hard and didn’t get up.

My stomach lurched.

This was my opening chapter.

I’d written the raid. I’d described the way the alphas circled each other before the first blood was drawn, the way the village elder had begged for mercy and been ignored, the way the moon had hung fat and low like it was watching the slaughter for entertainment.

I’d written it because it set the stakes. Because it showed how desperate both clans were, how close to extinction they were without a Luna to stabilize the bloodlines and calm the feral rage that came with every full moon cycle.

I’d written it to be dramatic.

I hadn’t written it to live it.

A fresh wave of snarls erupted from the left flank. More wolves poured from the tree line—reinforcements, maybe, or a flanking maneuver. I couldn’t tell. My knowledge of battle tactics came from fantasy novels and one half-remembered history class in high school.

One of the new arrivals, a huge silver, gray male, locked eyes with the notched-ear alpha. They charged.

The impact was like two trucks colliding. They reared up on hind legs, claws raking, jaws snapping. Fur flew. Blood misted the air. The ground shook under their weight.

I pressed a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

That’s when I saw her.

A girl, no older than sixteen, darted from a burning cottage, coughing, eyes wide with terror. She was clutching a blanket-wrapped bundle that might have been a baby. She stumbled, fell to her knees in the dirt. A Crimson Claw wolf, smaller, younger, maybe a juvenile, spun toward her. Lips peeled back. Saliva dripped from yellowed fangs.

The girl froze.

I didn’t think.

I just moved.

“Hey!” My voice cracked like a whip. “Over here, you overgrown mutt!”

The wolf’s head snapped toward me.

Golden eyes narrowed.

I grabbed the nearest thing, a thick branch that had fallen during my earlier sprint, and brandished it like a baseball bat. My hands shook so badly I almost dropped it.

“Come on!” I shouted again, louder this time. “Pick on someone who can fight back!”

Stupid. So stupid.

But it worked.

The wolf turned fully toward me, abandoning the girl. The girl scrambled to her feet and bolted toward the nearest house, disappearing inside.

The wolf took one step. Then another. Low growl rumbling from its chest.

I backed up.

One step. Two. My heel hit a root. I stumbled.

The wolf lunged.

I swung the branch with everything I had.

It connected, hard, against the side of its head.

The crack echoed.

The wolf yelped, staggered sideways, shook its head like it was trying to clear water from its ears.

I didn’t wait to see if it recovered.

I dropped the branch and ran again.

Deeper into the trees this time. Away from the clearing. Away from the howls and the blood and the screaming.

My socks were soaked through with dew and pine needles. My hoodie was torn at the sleeve. My lungs burned like I’d inhaled fire.

I didn’t stop until the sounds of battle faded to a dull roar behind me.

I collapsed against a fallen log, gasping, shaking.

Tears streamed down my face. I didn’t bother wiping them away.

“What the hell is happening?” I whispered to no one.

No answer.

Just the wind in the branches.

And somewhere, too close, the soft crunch of paws on leaves.

I went still.

A shadow moved between the trees.

Tall. Human-shaped. But the way it moved… too fluid. Too predatory.

It stepped into a shaft of moonlight.

A man.

Tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair falling into his eyes. Shirt torn open across his chest, revealing a long gash that wept blood. He was limping. Clutching his side.

Our eyes met.

He froze.

I froze.

Recognition slammed into me like a freight train.

I knew that face.

I’d described it in loving, obsessive detail.

Scar over the left eyebrow. Jaw sharp enough to cut glass. Eyes the color of storm clouds just before lightning.

Genesis.

Prince Genesis of the Silverfang clan.

The wounded alpha heir I’d written into a cave scene in chapter five.

He was supposed to be half-dead right now. Supposed to be found by the heroine later, after she’d escaped the village raid.

But here he was.

Bleeding.

Real.

Staring at me like I was the one who didn’t belong.

I opened my mouth.

No sound came out.

He took one step toward me.

Then his eyes rolled back, knees buckled, and he dropped like a stone.

Right at my feet.

I stared down at him, unconscious, bleeding, very much not a figment of my imagination.

And somewhere in the distance, the howls started up again.

Closer.

Much closer.