Running Through Ashes

Chapter 12

 Running Through Ashes

POV: Adelina McKenna

There’s a clarity that comes with being hunted.

A certain stillness inside the storm.

Your instincts sharpen. Time slows. The voice in your head silences, replaced by breath, by pulse, by the thrum of survival in your bones.

And mine was singing.

The moment I crossed into Appalachian territory deep into the Blue Ridge Mountains I felt it: that shift in the world’s skin. The trees grew older here. The air carried weight, not just from altitude, but from memory.

These woods weren’t empty.

They remembered.

And they watched.

I’d been running for two days.

Nights were the worst. Not because of the cold though it sliced through my coat like it didn’t exist but because that was when the wolves came closest.

Silver Fang trackers.

I could hear them sometimes. Feel them in the distance. Two males, one female. Low-ranked, likely enforcers sent not to kill outright, but to corner, to capture.

They weren’t here for mercy.

They were here for silence.

I didn’t stop moving. Caleb’s map was old, hand-drawn, marked with a strange set of symbols. Most of it didn’t make sense. Some paths weren’t on GPS. Others disappeared entirely. But something about it felt… familiar.

Like the path had been made for me.

Like my blood knew the way.

By the third day, my body ached in ways I didn’t know it could. My ankle throbbed, my stomach burned with hunger, and the whispers in my head were growing louder.

Not hallucinations.

Not madness.

My wolf.

She was waking again.

Cautiously. Slowly.

I could feel her beneath my skin, curled and wary like a wounded creature, but no longer silent.

She hadn’t spoken since the bond broke.

But now… she was watching.

Listening.

Waiting.

The landscape changed around dusk.

The forest opened into a narrow valley, and in its center stood the remains of an old burned-out structure. Ash coated the ground like frost. Blackened beams stuck from the earth like broken ribs. The scent of old fire clung to the air.

It wasn’t just destruction.

It was memory.

I stepped inside the ruins, careful not to disturb the silence. The wind whispered through the beams. And then—

A presence.

No sound.

No scent.

Just presence.

I froze.

“You shouldn’t be here,” said a voice behind me.

I spun, claws half-forming at my fingertips.

The woman standing at the edge of the clearing didn’t flinch.

She was tall, lean, wrapped in a cloak the color of soot. Her eyes were pale gray, almost white. Her hair was braided with feathers and bones. She looked like something carved out of the mountain itself.

I knew her before she spoke again.

“You’re Mama Oya,” I whispered.

She nodded once.

“You’ve come too early, wolf-child.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

She walked slowly into the ashes, her boots stirring no sound.

“Most don’t find this place until they’re broken beyond repair,” she murmured. “You, however…”

She turned to face me.

“You are only cracked.”

I dropped to my knees.

Not because I was afraid.

Because my body had reached its limit.

And maybe, somewhere deep down, I knew I was safe—for the first time in days.

“I was rejected,” I rasped.

She tilted her head.

“No. You were severed. Rejection is honest. What they did was cowardice dressed as law.”

I blinked.

“How do you know?”

She smiled without warmth. “These ashes belonged to my coven. My pack. Burned when the Silver Fang Council declared the Matrons ‘too wild to govern.’ I know betrayal intimately.”

A chill passed through me.

“You’re a Matron.”

“Was,” she corrected. “Now I’m the last flamekeeper.”

She crouched before me.

“And you, Adelina, are a spark the world thought it had drowned.”

I didn’t cry.

I wanted to.

But my soul was too dry for tears.

So instead, I asked the only question I could.

“What do I do now?”

Her answer was simple.

“Burn.”

That night, I slept under her roof an underground den hidden beneath the ruined house. It was warm, lined with old hides, lit by firelight that never dimmed. Her magic, she said, kept it hidden from all but those the mountain allowed.

That included me, apparently.

“You bleed old,” she said as she stirred something thick and bitter-smelling in a clay pot. “Not just Matron. Hollow Moon.”

“My father?”

“Your mother never told you his name?”

“Callen.”

Oya went still.

“Callen of the Ash Tongue,” she said quietly. “The warrior who defied the Alpha Creed. Who gave his life to protect a human woman.”

I stared. “You knew him?”

She nodded once.

“He saved more than her. He saved our line.”

She gestured to my chest.

“To you.”

Later, we sat by the flame as I ate slowly roots and meat, tough and earthy, but life-giving.

Oya unrolled a second map.

“Your journey isn’t over,” she said. “The Council won’t stop hunting. The bond you had with Reyes… even broken, it made waves. There are those who saw it. Felt it. And now they wonder what else you are.”

“What am I?” I asked quietly.

Her eyes glinted like silver.

“You are the Luna Unbound. The first in three generations born without allegiance to a High Alpha. That makes you the most dangerous wolf alive.”

I swallowed.

“And Lux?” I whispered, without meaning to.

Her brows lifted. “You’re with child?”

I nodded.

Her hand gripped mine suddenly.

“You need to leave tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“Because your child is more than heir,” she said. “She is convergence. The Matrons speak through her. And the Council…”

Her face hardened.

“They will kill you both if they find out.”

I didn’t sleep that night.

Not truly.

I sat beside the sacred flame and whispered to my unborn daughter.

“I’ll keep you safe,” I said, hand over my belly. “I swear it. Even if I have to burn the world to ash.”

In the dark, my wolf stirred.

Then let it burn.