LOGINLyralei walked side by side with Keziah through the stone corridors, their footsteps echoing off the walls in a rhythm that would've been comfortable if Keziah wasn't acting so damn strange.The woman was wringing her hands slowly, fingers twisting together and then pulling apart, over and over again like she couldn't quite figure out what to do with them. Lyralei watched it happen twice before she got the distinct feeling that Keziah wanted to say something but couldn't quite figure out how to start.They passed through another corridor, this one lit by torches set into brackets along the walls, and Keziah's hands twisted together again.Lyralei had enough.She stopped walking and turned to face her directly. "What's got you twisted up like that? Just say it already. Your fidgeting is getting to me."Keziah stopped and frowned at her, her expression shifting immediately to something darker. She glowered. "What do you mean by fidgeting?" Her voice came out sharp and defensive. "The la
Outside her door, Joefrey stopped mid-step as if he'd walked into an invisible wall.Heat surged through him without warning, sudden and immediate and completely unexpected, rushing from his chest outward like something had lit a match against his ribs and let it burn. He frowned and pressed one hand flat against the stone wall beside him, his jaw tightening as the sensation spread through his limbs and settled into his bones.He stared at Lyralei's door, his pale eyes fixed on the wood as if he could see through it to the woman sleeping on the other side.His free hand clenched into a fist at his side, knuckles going white with the pressure.Then he turned sharply on his heel and walked away, his movements stiff and controlled, his face giving nothing to the empty corridor around him. His boots hit the stone floor with measured, deliberate steps that echoed off the walls and faded into silence behind him.---Lyralei found herself in that space again before she'd even realized she'd
Lyralei stood in the room staring at nothing in particular, her mind still buzzing from the fight and the crowd and everything that had happened in that pit.The space was smaller than her room in Crimson Fang, though not uncomfortably so. Stone walls rose on all sides, rough-hewn and practical, with a single narrow window cut high into the rock that let in a sliver of fading daylight. A bed sat against one wall with furs piled thick enough to keep the mountain cold out, and a wooden chest rested against the far wall beside a small table that held a basin of water. Nothing decorative. Nothing soft. Just the essentials and nothing more. It was oozing shadowfang all over.She was clean now, at least. The bath had been brief and efficient, with Keziah standing guard outside the chamber door the entire time like she expected someone to walk in and start something. The water had been hot enough to sting her split lip and make her ribs complain, but it had washed the dirt and blood and swea
Seran didn't move.Neither did her companion. They both stood looking at the gold burning through Lyralei's tunic with the same expression — caution while studying her, not yet deciding what to do with what they were seeing.The cavern stayed quiet around them.Then someone on the ledge above broke it."I told you." A warrior's voice, directed at the man beside him. "That's her. She glows. I saw it myself at the Convergence Point, I told you about this you fucker."Murmuring started after that, spreading outward through the ledge as people turned to each other and put the pieces together."Wait — is that her? The one Bram wouldn't stop going on about?""The outsider from the Convergence Point. Has to be.""That's the glowing girl. That's actually her."Warriors who'd been at the Convergence Point had talked when they came back, and what they'd said had moved through the pack, and now it was moving again — faster this time, person to person across the full length of the ledge.Then som
The cavern shook.Not literally but it felt like it did. The roar that went up when Lyralei's words hit the air was immediate and total, every warrior in the pit reacting at the same time, on the floor and above on the ledge, and the sound slammed off the rock walls and came back doubled before she'd even finished speaking."Did she just—""By the Moon Goddess, she did!""Two at once! The outsider wants two at once!"Warriors on the ledge were shoving each other, some laughing so hard they had to grab the person beside them for balance, others leaning over the edge with their fists in the air. On the floor the ones pressed against the walls had started stamping, the impact coming up through the packed dirt in a rhythm that built on itself. A group near the far wall started it first, then the ones beside them picked it up, until the whole floor was vibrating with it under her boots.Some of them were cursing her outright."The girl has lost her senses!""How long do you give her? I say
Lyralei stared at the girl across from her and took a breath.No. It wasn't a mistake.She was here to prove to Joefrey that she wasn't weak. She was here because — she stopped.Wait.Why did she care what Joefrey thought? Why was she standing in a pit with bruised ribs and a throbbing cheekbone, trying so hard to make some cold-eyed Alpha take her seriously? Why was she even fighting in any of this? The shadow wolves, the four packs, the rotating months, all of it — why?The answer to the third one came before she'd finished asking it.Because she'd watched her parents die to those things. Because she'd seen a child strapped to a stone altar for a ritual sacrifice. Because she knew what it felt like to have no one come and she wasn't built for standing to the side while it happened to someone else. That was why. She shouldn't care this hard. She knew that. She had never once been rewarded for caring this hard.But she did. She just did.So fuck Joefrey.She was here. She was going to
Gerald Stormborn stood over the dissolving shadow wolf with that damned smirk plastered across his face like he'd just saved the entire world single-handedly. His Crimson Fang warriors surged forward, cheering his name and clapping him on the back with enough force to stagger a normal man. He ate it
Lyralei stood shocked as she stared at the massive wolf and then it moved toward her with its silver eyes fixed on where she stood. She felt that pull again, that strange attraction her mark had been resonating with, stronger now that it was closer.The wolf approached slowly with its head tilted s
The voice came from directly behind her, so close his breath stirred the wet tangles of her hair. Lyralei spun around in panic as she hadn't noticed him sneak up on her, the borrowed dagger coming up in a defensive position that was purely instinct and fear. Malachai stood there looking completely
Lyralei felt the full brunt of Alpha Malachai’s aura crushing down on her shoulders and honestly…. she was just tired, so bone-deep tired of everything that had happened in the past few days that she could barely think straight anymore. Tired of being stepped upon like mud beneath boots, tired of b







