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Chapter 4

Zara POV,

At exactly 6:00 am, the alarm buzzed. I had been up since four, way deep in thought that I couldn't sleep. I’d spent the dark hours clutching my arm, waiting for a voice to explain the gold fur, for a mindlink to snap into place and tell me I wasn't crazy. But there was nothing. Only the silence of a girl who was still, fundamentally, a smudge.

"Pick it up," Alpha Silas’s voice commanded, cutting through the morning mist.

I looked down. At my feet lay a rusted iron blade, the metal pitted and the edge so blunt it wouldn't have cut butter, let alone a predator. Around us, Dawnridge pack stood in a semi-circle, their faces masks of pity or disgust.

I reached for the hilt, my fingers white against the rusted iron. The crowd’s silence was louder than a roar. Ever since I stepped into Downridge, the pack members have never for once smiled at me, they are so fixated on testing me even if it meant me dying.

But it was better than being a slave to the mate that betrayed me not caring about the pain I was going through just to be with my step sister instead.

Still some deluded part of me clung to the hope that I still had a place in his heart.

Maybe once I become strong and worthy, he would come to his senses.

After all, I was still his mate and Elara couldn't take that from me.

I shut the stupid thought out before it could take a toll on me.

"Is this a joke?"

A voice came from the porch. I looked up to see Emily straining against the two patrol Betas blocking her path. Her face was a mask of fury. "A rusted scrap of iron, Silas? Why don't you just slit her throat yourself and save her the walk?"

"Back inside, Emily," Silas barked without looking at her. "You’ve done enough damage for one lifetime."

"I won't watch this!" Emily screamed, her voice echoing off the stone buildings. "She’s a smudge! She has no wolf to protect her! You’re murdering her in front of the whole pack!"

Silas finally turned, his eyes flashing with a dangerous, dark heat. "She is a guest who entered these lands illegally. By the laws of the Accord, she proves her worth or she feeds the forest. Guards, take my sister to her quarters. She is under house arrest until the sun sets."

"You coward!" Emily yelled as they dragged her backward through the door. "If she dies, Silas, you lose a sister today too!"

The heavy oak door slammed shut, cutting off her voice. The silence that followed was suffocating.

Silas stepped into my space, his shadow blotting out the weak morning light. "Do you have anything to say, Zara Fen? Or are you as silent as the soul they say you lack?"

I looked at the blade, then at him. "You want me to fail."

"I want the truth," he countered, his voice a low vibration that made the gold fur on my wrist prickle. "If you are the defect Lir claims, you’ll be dead by noon. If you are something else... bring me the token from the old skirmish site."

"And if I don't come back?"

A cold, predatory smirk touched his lips. "Then the crows will have a feast, and I’ll have one less war to worry about." He leaned down, his breath warm against my ear. "Don't disappoint the crowd, Zara. They’ve been waiting all morning for a show."

He stepped back and signaled to the gate guards. "Open it."

The iron gates groaned, revealing the mouth of the Boundary Woods—a wall of choking fog and ancient, rotting pines.

"Go," Silas commanded. "And remember—the border closes at dusk. If you're on the wrong side of it when the sun drops, you're a rogue. And I hunt rogues for sport."

I didn't wait for him to change his mind. I gripped the blunt knife and walked past him, my shoulder brushing his chest. I didn't look back at the pack or the house where Emily was trapped. I stepped into the fog, the damp chill of the woods swallowing me whole.

I hadn't gone fifty yards when a voice sliced through the mist behind me.

"First one to find her remains gets her boots!" a guard laughed, followed by the sound of several wolves shifting.

They weren't just waiting for me to fail. They were going to hunt me. Regardless I was determined to come back alive. I snarled back at him.

I clutched hard at the knife.

I still remember how my father had taken out some days to teach me how to defend myself, and how he laughed at my feeble steps and reminded me I was too small to learn how to fight but I had the grit and that one day…

A low growl vibrated through the wood and my head snapped.

I froze. Something moved between the pines—too slow for wind, too careful for an animal. I lowered my stance, my father’s "grit" grounding my heels as I raised the blade.

Nothing came.

I exhaled slowly and began to climb. I needed higher ground; staying low in the fog was a death sentence. I counted each breath, listening to the forest breathe back, until a sharp metallic tang hit the air.

The scent of blood.

I followed it into a small clearing tangled with ferns. There, near the center, lay the carved bone token, dark with drying red. Relief hit me—and that was my mistake.

Three shapes stepped out of the shadows.

Three Wolves. But they weren't a pack. Their eyes were beastly and wide and their bodies moved in jerky, unbalanced rhythms.

Ferals.

They began the scavenger’s circle. One limped, and his side torn open, but the others didn't care. In the Boundary, weakness meant nothing. As they closed in, my fractured soul pushed forward, a wordless snarl vibrating in my chest.

The first rogue blurred toward me. I sidestepped, my blunt blade catching his shoulder. He howled in a hollow sound that echoed off the trees.

Before he could recover, the second was on me. I was able to dodge a fatal blow as I dropped low, driving the iron upward into his chest. Hot, thick blood poured over my hand, slick and terrifyingly real.

The third didn't hesitate. Pain exploded in my arm as his teeth tore through my skin. I screamed, but I didn't let go. I drove the blade down—once, twice, three times—until his weight finally slumped into the dirt.

Silence slammed into the clearing. My arm burned, blood soaking my sleeve until it was warm and heavy. I grabbed the token, shoving it into my jacket. Don't stop. Stopping is dying.

But the woods had gone too quiet. No insects. No birds. Just a silence that felt heavy.

I ran. Unsure of what might attack me again.

Branches tore at my skin. My lungs burned like I was swallowing fire. I looked behind me and ahead of me as I was climbing. I was out of time.

I broke through the final line of trees, the gate groaned open and I stumbled into the Dawnridge clearing.

The pack was already there, a wall of faces that expected to see a ghost. I staggered forward, my legs finally giving out as I collapsed to my knees.

My blood soaked into the dirt of the settlement, dark and defiant.

Emily cried out and ran to my side. The world faded to black as Emily grabbed my wound to stop my bleeding.

Through the muffled, deafening ringing in my ears, I heard voices rise in a shocked, disbelieving wave, right before an authoritative roar cut through the chaos.

“Take her to the infirmary. Now!”