The Holdfast

The forest did not end so much as it thickened until I could no longer tell where one tree began and another ended. Mist crawled low to the ground, curling around my ankles as if it meant to trip me. Branches groaned overhead in a wind I couldn’t feel on my face. Every sound was doubled—my own heartbeat echoing, my boots crunching leaves sounding too loud, too sharp.

“Clara.” Jasper’s voice was a low rumble behind me. It wasn’t a warning so much as a reminder. I slowed, trying not to trip over my own panic.

“How much farther?” I asked, though the words came out choked, like my throat had shrunk three sizes.

“Close.”

That was all he said, as if the forest itself would punish him for speaking more.

Then his hand shot out, fingers curling around my wrist—not gentle, not cruel, just absolute. “Look,” he said, pointing with his chin.

Through the trees, something massive rose from the dark. At first I thought it was just rock, a jagged outcrop of mountain. But the lines were too straight, the silhouette too deliberate. A wall. Stone fitted to stone, weathered and moss-veined, but holding fast against centuries of rain. The Holdfast.

“Oh,” I breathed. My chest loosened for a second, wonder pushing fear back. “There it is.”

And that was when the forest tore open.

A blur of movement, a snarl that sounded like hunger and hatred in the same breath. Eyes, yellow and burning, locked on me from the dark. The Rogue wolf came low and fast, claws tearing soil as it lunged. My body froze, but Jasper’s didn’t.

Steel hissed, a white arc in the night, and the Rogue’s head spun away, the body collapsing mid-stride. The stink of blood and rot hit me at the same time.

“Run!” Jasper barked. His voice cracked like a whip through the fog choking my thoughts. “Don’t look back until the Holdfast swallows you.”

I ran.

My lungs burned almost immediately, my breath ragged, but fear pushed me harder. Branches slapped my face, rocks tore at my shoes. My every step screamed too loud, told the woods where I was. I wanted to keep my eyes forward, but some ugly part of me betrayed itself and turned back.

Jasper was there. Not far. Sword slick, eyes blazing with that impossible stillness even in motion. He moved like a storm given human shape. Relief hit me so hard my knees buckled. I stumbled, pitched forward—

And arms caught me. Hard and solid, stopping my fall like a wall that cared.

“Got you.” Jasper’s voice was low, steadier than mine deserved. For a second I sagged against him, cheek brushing the edge of his shoulder. The heat of him burned through the cold night, steadier than any promise.

“Thanks,” I panted, half a laugh bubbling up in the wrong place. “Guess I’m good at falling.”

His mouth twitched. “Then get better at running.”

He set me on my feet, gave me the barest push forward.

The wall loomed closer now—massive, impossible. Jasper’s hand lifted, fingers carving a symbol into the stone with his blade’s tip. The mark glowed briefly, as if the wall itself had been waiting. The air shifted, splitting with a sound like breath drawn in reverse. A crack appeared, wide enough for two to slip through, darkness yawning beyond.

Jasper reached for me. “It’s okay to be afraid,” he said. His voice was iron wrapped in something gentler. “But you’ll step inside, and you’ll be safe.”

I took his hand.

The world changed when we crossed. The air was warmer, carrying scents of smoke and fur and earth. The corridors inside were carved stone, lit by torches that guttered but did not smoke. Shadows danced across walls lined with carvings I couldn’t read—wolves, moons, stars, battles. My chest loosened slightly. I wasn’t sure if it was safety or the illusion of it.

“Jasper.” A voice floated toward us, smooth, light.

A woman stepped forward. Her smile was quick and bright, her hair braided back tight from a face that carried too much laughter to belong in this place. She looked at me, eyes sparkling with open curiosity. “So this is her?”

“This is Clara,” Jasper said simply.

“Well then.” She crossed the space and offered her hand like we’d met at school, not in a fortress of wolves. “Vivian. Welcome.”

I took her hand, her warmth unsettling in its normalcy. “Hi,” I managed.

“Come on,” she said, tilting her head toward a corridor. “I’ll show you around before the others eat you alive with their stares.”

Her words proved true. As we walked, I caught the eyes of wolves—some in human shape, some half-shifted, claws or ears betraying their forms. They moved with eerie grace, their heads dipping almost unconsciously when Jasper passed. Their eyes flicked to me, unreadable—some wary, some curious, a few openly hostile.

The Holdfast was not home. Not yet.

I turned a corner too sharply and collided with something solid. Someone.

“Watch it,” a voice snapped. Male, sharp as glass.

I stumbled back, meeting eyes like storm clouds. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his presence filling the space even without raising his voice further. The hostility rolled off him thick as fog.

“Sorry,” I said, instinct pulling the apology out.

He sneered. “Don’t get too comfortable. You don’t belong here.”

Before I could find words, Vivian slid between us. “Jason,” she said with weary authority. “Enough.”

He didn’t move, just let his gaze slice over me one last time before shoving past. My skin crawled where his eyes had touched.

“Don’t mind him,” Vivian said, tone softer now. “He’s… protective of the pack. Too much sometimes.”

“Is he always like that?” I asked.

“Mostly.” She hesitated, then changed the subject before I could push further.

We kept walking. But Jason’s words stuck like burrs.

Later, gathered in a wide chamber where wolves and humans sat together in uneasy quiet, the air carried grief as thick as smoke. A body had been lost in the last Rogue skirmish. Faces were solemn, eyes shadowed. My mouth went dry, my own desperation clawing up despite the sorrow in the air.

“Jasper,” I whispered, tugging at his sleeve. “What about my mother? We can’t waste time here—she’s still out there—”

His jaw tightened. “Clara, not now.”

“No, listen—she’s all I have, she—”

“Enough!” The sharpness in his voice cracked like a whip, startling more than a few wolves into silence. His eyes burned at me, pain and anger tangled. “Look around you. We just buried one of ours. Do you think you’re the only one who’s lost someone?”

I froze. My throat ached with words I couldn’t shape.

“Don’t,” he said softer, though the steel stayed. “Don’t make their grief small with your own.”

I wanted to argue, to scream that she was my mother, that I couldn’t just sit here while Rogues dragged her gods-know-where. But the eyes around me were too heavy, too accusing.

Before I could answer, another voice cut through the silence. “Sit down, girl.”

A woman stepped forward from the circle. Tall, her posture a blade drawn halfway, eyes hard as river stones. She carried authority without asking for it, and when she moved, others shifted subtly aside.

Her hand was sudden and sharp against my cheek. The crack echoed.

The room went still.

“That’s for forgetting you’re not the only one hurting,” she said. Her voice didn’t rise, but it carried farther than shouting. “Your blood may make you heir, but it doesn’t make you Alpha. Remember that.”

Heat flamed across my skin, shame and rage warring in my chest. I wanted to snarl, to bite, to hit back. But something in her gaze froze me harder than Jasper’s rebuke.

“Lyra,” Jasper said tightly. “That was unnecessary.”

“Necessary,” she corrected, never looking away from me.

Then she turned, shoulders squared, and the room seemed to exhale only once she’d gone.

I touched my cheek, the sting anchoring me in a way nothing else had. Safe, yes. Welcomed, no. I wasn’t sure which mattered more.