SERENA’S POV The night smelled of iron and rain. I stood at the western watchtower, the torches casting long shadows across the trees. For days, tension had wound tighter and tighter through the pack, every howl at the borders setting hearts on edge. Kael’s voice carried low behind me. “Scouts report movement in the north ridge. Rogues or worse.” My wolf bristled under my skin. It wasn’t if they’d come. It was when. By the time we reached the ridge, the air was thick with the stench of unwashed fur and bloodlust. Figures slithered from the trees, rogues, but not wild. They moved with purpose, controlled, their eyes glazed with the sheen of magic. Freya’s hand was all over them. Kael shifted with a growl that rattled my bones, his black wolf towering, fangs bared. Marcus and the warriors flanked him. I called to my wolf, silver light bursting along my skin as I shifted halfway, my claws extended and my fangs out. The clash came fast. Teeth and claws tore through the clearing, sn
KAEL’S POV The raven returned at dusk. Its black wings cut through the fading light, dropping down onto my arm with a snap of talons. I untied the message sealed in crimson wax, the mark of Alpha Toren of the Ironfang Pack. I already knew the answer before I unrolled it. His words were curt, devoid of sentiment. Black Ash fights its own demons. We will not bleed for them. Do not call upon us again. I crushed the parchment in my hand. The crackle of it sounded too loud in the war chamber. Marcus and Alina stood across the table, their faces grim as they studied the maps spread before us, border lines, red ink marking where Freya’s influence might stretch next. “They don’t believe the threat,” Marcus said. His voice was low, heavy with frustration. “Or worse, they think standing with us will make them a target.” “Cowards,” I muttered. My wolf clawed under my skin, restless, angry. “When the Alpha King comes, he’ll devour them too. But they’d rather wait until his fangs are at thei
SERENA’S POV A week passed in uneasy quiet. The pack grounds hummed with their usual rhythm: training in the yards, patrols circling the borders, laughter spilling from the younger wolves as if the world beyond our walls had not darkened. But every night, when the moon crested high and the shadows thickened, the silence Elder Thalos gave me felt thinner, brittle. That night, sleep dragged me under, and the vision came. It was fire first. Roaring, devouring, staining the sky in hues of blood and ash. A village collapsed under the Alpha King’s banners, his soldiers cutting down wolves that fled with children in their arms. Their cries pierced the smoke, a chorus of despair that made my chest ache. And then, I saw Kael. His sword flashed as he fought, his wolf burning through him, but there was blood across his chest, and his eyes… gods, his eyes were so tired. Behind him, our pack walls cracked, stone by stone falling into ruin. But worse—worse was me. I stood across the bat
KAEL’S POV The ashes of the eastern village still clung to my memory when we gathered together that night. The weight of every death pressed against me, a silent demand for action. Marcus stood at my right, arms crossed, his eyes hard. Serena sat across the table, her hand resting against the wood, steadying me more than she knew. Alina, calm but sharp-eyed, leaned forward, waiting. “They won’t stop with the east,” I said. “The Alpha King wanted me to see his reach. To show that my borders mean nothing to him.” Marcus’s jaw flexed. “He’s baiting you.” “Then let him,” I growled. “But I won’t walk into his war unprepared. If we face him, we’ll need more than Black Ash. We’ll need every ally we can muster.” The room stilled at that. Alina shifted, uneasy. “Kael… alliances come with debts. You know that. Wolves don’t fight for free.” I looked her dead in the eye. “Better to owe than to bury our pack under ash.” Markus Harden was beside me, talking to his mate that way, I couldn’t h
SERENA’S POV A week passed in uneasy quiet. Life in Black Ash moved as though nothing had changed, wolves training in the yard, pups tumbling in the grass, the scent of fresh bread and roasted meat drifting from the kitchens. Kael’s orders to double the patrols had been carried out, and each night the borders bristled with sharper vigilance. On the surface, peace had returned. But beneath it, a fragile thread pulled tight. I felt it every time my wolf lifted her head at a sound in the distance, every time Kael’s gaze swept the horizon as though he expected the shadows to bleed into our lands. The silence in my mind still held, though cracks threatened at the edges. Sometimes I thought I heard the faintest hum, like breath against the back of my neck, gone before I could catch it. Freya was watching. Waiting. I was in the library that morning, tracing the spines of old tomes, when the doors burst open. One of the border guards stumbled in, chest heaving, eyes wide with horror. “
SERENA POV The warmth of home clung to me as Kael and I followed Marcus into his private study after settling down. The walls smelled faintly of parchment and cedar, the fire crackling low in the hearth. Alina had retreated to prepare supper, leaving the three of us in the dim light, the weight of unspoken truths pressing thick between us. Marcus poured wine into three cups and set them on the desk. His sharp eyes scanned me, as if reading every flicker of unease I thought I’d hidden. “You both returned whole,” he said finally. “But different. What happened out there?” Kael glanced at me before answering, his hand tightening around mine. “Thalos performed the ritual. It cut Freya’s pull from Serena… but it won’t last forever.” Marcus froze, cup in hand. His brows furrowed. “Explain.” So we did. We told him of the iron bowl, of blood and fire, of whispers that tried to crawl into my mind even as the flames consumed them. I told him of the silence that followed, the first silence