LOGINOutside 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
The cavern went quiet.Not the gradual kind, where noise bleeds out slowly as people notice something. This was immediate. One moment the pit was loud enough to feel it in her chest, and the next there was nothing except the torches crackling and the last few stragglers realizing everyone else had stopped talking.Every head had turned to find her.Across the cavern, Seran had gone completely still. She was staring up at the ledge with her eyes fixed on Lyralei's face and her expression caught somewhere between disbelief and shock.The crowd broke.It started on the far side of the ledge and spread fast, voices overlapping and climbing, everyone talking at once. Warriors on the floor below started shouting up at the two fighters still standing in the middle of the pit."Get out! Move your asses!""Clear the floor, we have a real fight coming!"Someone near Lyralei's shoulder leaned over the ledge and cupped his hands around his mouth. "If you two aren't out of there in ten seconds I'm
Gerald stared at the empty space where she’d been standing. That smirk on her face right before she jumped. The way she’d turned without hesitation and thrown herself off a cliff that made his stomach drop just looking at it. Of all the things he’d expected her to do, this wasn’t it. And what th
They settled onto benches near Gerald’s elevated platform, Rienna positioning herself strategically so Lyralei ended up between her and Kessa. The others arranged themselves across the table, completing their little circle.“So,” Kessa said the moment they were seated, leaning close with eager eyes
Lyralei stepped out of her room and immediately regretted every life choice that had led her to this moment.The corridor stretched in two directions, both looking exactly the same with their carved stone walls and flickering torches. She’d been so focused on arguing with Eliasen earlier that she h
Lyralei pressed her lips together, fighting the laughter that kept bubbling up her throat. Her shoulders shook with the effort of holding it in, and she had to look away from Eliasen’s irritated expression before she completely lost control. Across the feast hall, Gerald stared at her with somethi







