027 ~ Hunted ~

Smoke found her before the tree line did.

It moved through the branches ahead in a way that turned Selene's blood to ice before she'd even cleared the last ridge.

She broke into a run, her boots tearing through underbrush as the blind wolf's warning kept ringing in her ears louder than the crackle growing ahead of her.

The hollow oak was burning. Flames had already swallowed half the trunk, with black smoke pouring upward through the canopy.

Even the small clearing that had felt like a sanctuary an hour ago now looked like the mouth of something that had finally closed.

Selene stopped running at the tree line. Her chest rose and dropped like it would burst out in any second while her eyes scanned the wreckage for any sign of him.

"No." The word tore out of her throat before she could stop it. "No, no—"

She lunged forward, and a hand caught her arm from behind, drawing her back into the shadow of the trees before she could break into the open.

"Don't." Kieran's voice, low with a tone of urgency, whispered close against her ear. "There are still wolves out there."

"He was in there."

"If he was, running out into a burning clearing won't save him." He didn't loosen his grip, though his eyes swept the tree line with the same frantic urgency she felt clawing at her chest. "We have to move. Now."

They didn't stop running until the wall of the estate rose ahead of them, and even then Selene barely registered passing through the gate.

Her mind was still trapped in that burning clearing, replaying the old wolf's final words like they might change if she turned them over enough times.

"They will come for me now that you've found me."

She'd done this. Whatever had happened to him, she'd walked it straight to his door.

"Someone knew," she said, once they'd stopped in the shadow of the stables, both of them still catching their breath. "Someone knew exactly where to find him. I told no one where I was going."

"I know."

"Then how—" She stopped herself, the answer arriving before she wanted it to. "Someone was watching me. The whole time. From the moment I left my chambers."

Kieran's jaw tightened. "That's not possible. You said you were careful."

"I was." Her hands curled into fists, fueled by fury and grief too tangled tightly to separate. "Which means whoever's watching me isn't guessing where I go. They're already three steps ahead of every move I make."

Her fingers grazed her forehead as a flicker of movement in her memory made her go still. She remembered the warriors circling the burning clearing as she'd fled, the torchlight catching on metal at their shoulders. She'd been too far and too scared to register it in the moment. Now it made sense in the weirdest of ways

She remembered seeing a wolf's head wreathed in thorns, not the jagged claw mark of Ashfang. They were Blackwood.

Her stomach dropped. "It wasn't Ashfang warriors."

Kieran frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Their insignia." Her voice had gone dangerously quiet, the same quiet that had settled over her the night Victor's slip had cracked something open in her chest. "I saw it right before we ran. A wolf's head in thorns."

Something shifted behind Kieran's eyes; it looked like disbelief giving way to something closer to dread. "That's not possible."

"I know what I saw."

"Selene—"

"That's your pack's mark." She stepped back from him, putting distance between them like distance could undo what she'd just recognized. "Your warriors burned that clearing. Your warriors are the ones who took him."

"I didn't send anyone into that forest." His voice sharpened, urgency breaking through the careful calm he usually wore. "I swear to you, I gave no order."

"Then how do you explain the insignia?"

"I can't." The admission seemed to cost him something, his shoulders dropping under the weight of it. "I don't have an answer for you. But I know what I didn't do, and I didn't send warriors to burn down a man in hiding."

"Then someone in your pack did." Her voice shook, fury and fear bleeding together until she could barely separate them. "Someone wearing your colors just erased the only witness I had, and you're telling me you didn't know."

"I didn't." He said it plainly, without flinching, though something haunted had crept into his expression. "Which is worse. If I'd ordered it, at least I'd understand what's happening inside my own pack. Instead I'm standing here learning my warriors moved against my will, and I have no idea who gave the command."

Selene stared at him, searching his face for the lie she'd spent five years expecting from him, and found nothing but genuine, unsettled shock staring back.

"Someone is acting without your knowledge," she said slowly, the realization settling over both of them at once. "Inside your own ranks."

"Yes."

"Could it have been your Beta? Or a General powerful enough to move soldiers without his Alpha's command? Maybe someone powerful has had enough of everything you claim you are that you are not and is... Acting out!"

Kieran stared at her, lost. "Caius is loyal to a fault. He would give his life for me if it means I lived. And high-ranking general or not, they owe their life to their alpha..."

"That means you don't control your pack the way you think you do?" She cut him short.

His jaw clenched as the truth of it visibly landed somewhere he hadn't let himself go yet. "No. I don't."

The silence between them stretched, heavy with everything neither of them wanted to say out loud— that the conspiracy had grown teeth inside the one place Selene had almost let herself feel safe, that the ground beneath Kieran's authority had just cracked wide enough to swallow both of them whole.

"I will find whoever did this," Kieran said finally, low and certain in a way that left no room for doubt. "I will find the traitor in my ranks, and I will drag them into the light myself."

"How do I know that's not another lie? Last I checked, you tell them really well."

"You don't." He held her gaze, unflinching despite the accusation. "But I'm asking you to trust me anyway. Just this once."

Selene said nothing, even though she knew that trusting him now might be the most dangerous choice she'd made yet.