RAFE’S OFFER

The holding cell smells like rust and despair.

I’ve been here for six hours. No trial. No formal charges read. Just a stone room with a single barred window and a cot that smells like the last person who was imprisoned here. I don’t want to think about who that was or what happened to them.

The guard brings food I can’t eat and water I drink too quickly because it gives me something to do besides sit with my thoughts.

That’s when Rafe arrives.

He dismisses the guard with a single look—there’s power in that now, I realize. Power I gave him by refusing to stay silent about what he is—and closes the cell door behind him like we’re old friends meeting for tea.

“You look terrible,” he says, settling onto the cot like he owns it.

“Get out.”

“Can’t. Your new boyfriend’s father is too busy dealing with the heir situation to pay attention to visitors.” He leans back and smiles. “Besides, I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”

I don’t respond. I just stand by the window and wait for whatever psychological warfare he’s planning.

“Damien’s going to be executed,” Rafe says conversationally. “Did you know that? The council just voted. Treason gets you execution, which means in two days, your mate burns. And then you burn. Three days after that, they’re executing both of you in front of the entire pack.”

I force myself not to react. Not to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.

“But here’s the thing,” he continues, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “I could stop it.”

Now I turn around.

“I could tell the Alpha that you seduced me into protecting you. That I was manipulated by your weakness and your need. That I had no choice.” Rafe stands and moves closer. “I could make a case for your exile instead of execution. Both of you. Gone from the pack, but alive.”

“In exchange for what?”

“Come with me.”

The words hang in the air between us.

“Leave with me tonight,” he continues. “The two of us. We go north. We find sanctuary with one of the rogue packs. We start over.”

“You killed Lyra.”

“Yes.”

At least he’s honest about it. That somehow makes it worse.

“You murdered my best friend because I rejected you, and now you expect me to just… what? Forgive you? Run away with you?”

“I expect you to be smart.” He steps closer, and his eyes are completely clear. Completely sincere. “I expect you to understand that your choices have consequences, and that sometimes the only way to survive is to accept the hand you’re dealt.”

“The hand you dealt.”

“Yes.” He reaches out and touches my cheek, and I don’t flinch this time. I let him. “I dealt it. I won. And now I’m offering you a way out of the game entirely.”

“Damien will never agree to this.”

“Damien will be dead in two days.” Rafe’s thumb traces my cheekbone. “So his agreement is irrelevant.”

The rage that blooms in my chest is silver-hot and absolute.

“I will never go anywhere with you,” I say quietly. “I will burn before I spend one second of my life with the man who murdered Lyra. And you know what the worst part is?”

He waits.

“She forgave you. Before you killed her, she told me she thought you were lonely. That you needed someone to see you.” The words are daggers, and I’m aiming for his heart. “She pitied you. And you repaid that by tearing her throat open.”

His hand drops.

“You want to know what that makes you?” I continue. “Not a strong wolf. Not a powerful male. Just a coward who hurts people he can’t control.”

For a second, I see it. The crack in his facade. The moment where the mask slips and I glimpse the actual broken thing underneath.

Then it’s back.

“You’re going to regret that,” he says softly.

“I already do. But not for the reason you think.”

He leaves without another word, and I’m alone again in the cell.

Two hours later, a guard opens the door.

“You’re being released,” he says.

“What? Why?”

“The Alpha’s orders. Pack needs warriors for a perimeter patrol. Every available fighter.”

I don’t understand. They just arrested me. They just sentenced me to execution. Why would they—

Unless.

Unless this is part of Rafe’s plan. Release me into the field where something “accidental” can happen. A rogue attack. An ambush. My death that doesn’t require a trial.

“When do we leave?” I ask.

“Now. You’ll be paired with—”

“Kaia.”

Damien stands in the corridor, and he looks like he’s been through hell. His knuckles are split. His eye is bruised. There’s a fresh cut along his jaw.

“You were released too?” I ask.

“Appeal from my father. Says the pack needs the strength of both of us for this patrol, regardless of our legal status.” He doesn’t look at me, but his jaw clenches. “Convenient timing.”

“The two of you are on perimeter duty. Northern woods, two-mile radius. Back by midnight.” The guard hands us both weapons—a concession to our warrior status, even if we’re technically prisoners. “Try anything stupid, and we have orders to shoot.”

We walk out of the compound in silence.

The woods are dark and dense, and I can feel Damien’s anger radiating off him like heat. We don’t speak until we’re far enough away that no one can hear us.

“Rafe came to see me,” I say.

“I know. He came to see me too.”

“He offered me exile. Said he’d advocate for our release if I—”

“Left with him,” Damien finishes. “Yeah. He made me the same offer. Said he’d clear us both if I agreed to let him have you.”

I stop walking.

“What did you say?”

“What do you think I said?” He finally looks at me, and his eyes are gold-threaded fury. “I told him to burn in hell.”

“Damien, if there’s any chance—”

“There’s not.” He grabs my arm and pulls me closer. “Do you understand what’s happening? This isn’t a real patrol. This is Rafe giving us one last chance to die cleanly. Out here. Where it looks like an accident.”

“Then why did you come? Why didn’t you stay in the compound?”

“Because I’m not going to spend my last hours locked in a cell.” He pulls me against him, and his voice drops. “And because I wanted one more moment with you before the end.”

We stand there in the darkness, and I can feel the weight of it. The finality. The fact that everything has come down to this moment, in this forest, with guards watching and Rafe orchestrating our deaths.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “For all of this. For dragging you into—”

“Don’t.” His hand comes up and grips the back of my neck. “Don’t apologize for being worth saving. Don’t apologize for being my mate. Don’t apologize for any of it.”

He leans down, and I think he’s going to kiss me. His lips are so close I can feel the warmth of his breath.

That’s when we hear it.

A sound that’s not a guard. Not human.

Rogue.

I smell it before I see it—old blood and wrong fur, the scent of a wolf that’s been feral too long. The shape comes through the trees, and it’s massive. Scarred. Feral-eyed.

And it’s not alone.

Three more rogues emerge from the darkness, and I realize this is the ambush. Rafe’s gift to us—a death that looks like bad luck instead of murder.

Damien pushes me behind him and shifts.

His bones crack and reform, and suddenly there’s a massive black wolf where my mate used to be. Bigger than the lead rogue. Angrier.

“Run,” he snarls, still half-human.

“I’m not leaving you—”

“Run, Kaia!”

The rogues attack.

Damien meets them with a roar that shakes the forest, and I watch him fight them—one, two, three—and I realize he’s trying to give me an escape route. He’s buying me time with his body.

I could run. I should run.

Instead, I feel the silver heat building in my chest, and I stop trying to contain it.

The Moonfire blooms across my skin like a second sun, and the rogues scream.

The silver fire catches the lead rogue across the face, and he goes down, his fur burning. The others hesitate, and in that moment of confusion, Damien finishes them.

When it’s over, we’re both standing in the wreckage—blood and ash and the smell of burnt flesh—and I’m still glowing.

“You used it,” Damien says, shifting back to human form. He’s covered in blood and wounds that are already starting to heal.

“I couldn’t let you die.”

“Now they’ll know. The guards saw that light. They’ll report it to the council, and—”

The sound of arrows cuts through the air.

One embeds itself in a tree beside us. Then another. Then another.

“Run!” Damien grabs my hand. “They’re shooting from the guard posts. They’re trying to kill us!”

We run.

Hand in hand through the forest, with arrows chasing us and guards closing in and the knowledge that we’re completely out of options now.

Rafe didn’t just orchestrate our deaths.

He orchestrated our escape.

And now there’s nowhere to go but forward.