The Hunters Break Through

Chapter 16

The Hunters Break Through

POV: Adelina McKenna

They came on the seventh night.

I should have sensed them sooner.

But I’d been too busy listening to the fire.

Since the Flamebranding, my wolf had barely slept.

She moved beneath my skin like lightning looking for a strike. The burn on my shoulder hummed even at rest, feeding a warmth through my chest that no wind could chill. I could feel the change in my blood thicker, brighter, aware.

Oya had taught me to listen for shifts in the mountain.

The way birds went quiet.

The way branches bent not with the wind, but in warning.

So when the owls fell silent, when the fog hugged the earth a little too tight…

I knew.

They were close.

I stood at the edge of the ridge outside Oya’s den, boots planted in snow, eyes narrowed at the dark pines below.

They moved like they belonged here.

But they didn’t.

Their scent was wrong. Too clean. Metal and chemical beneath the natural musk of wolf. Enforcers from Silver Fang, enhanced with scent blockers and suppressants. I’d read about them in old rogue journals Caleb slipped into my pack the night I fled.

These weren’t just trackers.

They were executioners.

And they were here for me.

Oya emerged from the shadows beside me, quiet as always.

“They’ve found you,” she said.

“I know.”

“Three. Two males. One female. Apex-grade.”

I nodded.

“They’ll move fast.”

“So will I.”

She didn’t try to stop me.

Didn’t tell me to hide.

She only handed me something from beneath her cloak.

A set of leather-wrapped gauntlets, trimmed in obsidian.

“Burn bright,” she whispered.

And then she stepped back into the trees.

I walked into the valley like I’d been summoned.

Because I had.

Their trap was crude designed to make me run. The scent of dead rabbit. A trail of broken branches. The faint hiss of silver laced into the snow.

But I didn’t run.

I walked straight into their kill zone.

Let them see me.

Let them believe they still understood who I was.

Let them be wrong.

The first arrow came from the east.

I heard it before I saw it whistling through the trees like a death note.

My wolf surged.

I dropped into a roll, felt the arrow crack into the frozen ground behind me. I came up behind a tree, claws unsheathed, breath steaming in the air.

The second enforcer emerged from behind a pine, twin blades drawn.

Fast.

But I was faster.

I pivoted low, slashing up across his chest with my clawed hand. Sparks flew as the edge of my flamebrand caught the hilts of his weapons. He screamed a short, sharp cry and dropped to the ground, stunned.

I didn’t wait.

I turned, ducked another strike, and lunged into the dark.

The third wolf female, masked was already mid-shift. Her jaw elongated, her spine cracked with the sound of fury. She moved like a blur, claws aimed for my throat.

But I didn’t flinch.

Instead, I let go.

And for the first time, I shifted mid-air.

Not with pain.

But with precision.

My limbs broke and reformed in a blink. Fur exploded from my skin. My jaw reshaped into a muzzle. My body compacted into something lethal and fast.

My wolf form.

Matron-born. Silver-eyed. Marked in flame.

The female enforcer hit me mid-shift but I was ready.

We tumbled into the snow, snarling and biting. Her claws scored my ribs, but I sank my teeth into her shoulder and threw her off with a snarl that split the night.

The fire inside me burned hotter.

My brand pulsed.

And the moment she touched it, she screamed.

Silver Fang never trained for Matron fire.

They didn’t believe it still existed.

But it does.

And now… they’d learned.

The male I’d stunned tried to rise again.

I shifted back mid-run, caught his blade between my gauntlets, twisted it from his grip, and slammed my elbow into his jaw.

He went down.

Hard.

Panting, blood on my lips, I stood in the center of the clearing, surrounded by three fallen hunters.

Breathing.

Burning.

Alive.

They looked up at me with new eyes.

Not as prey.

Not as a target.

But as something else.

Something older.

“I warned you,” I said.

They didn’t answer.

So I turned away.

And let them crawl back to whoever sent them.

Let them carry the message with them.

That the girl they’d hunted was gone.

And in her place stood something they couldn’t command.

A Flamebranded Luna.

Back at the den, Oya waited by the fire.

She looked up once. Saw the blood. The smoke.

And smiled.

“Well,” she said, “that took longer than I expected.”

I collapsed onto the furs with a laugh and a groan.

“My ribs hurt.”

“They’ll heal.”

She handed me a flask of bone tea.

I took it without question.

“I didn’t kill them,” I said.

“I know.”

“I wanted to.”

She nodded.

“But you didn’t,” she said. “That’s the difference between them and us.”

We sat in silence for a long time, watching the flames dance.

Finally, I said, “They’ll send more.”

“Yes.”

“And worse.”

Oya’s eyes glinted.

“They can send armies,” she said. “But they’ll find nothing but ash.”

That night, I dreamed of Lux.

Not as a child.

As a wolf.

Running through fields of fire.

Moonlight in her eyes.

Flame licking at her heels.

And I knew 

She wasn’t coming into this world to be hidden.

She was coming to change it.

And I would make sure there was a world left for her to rise in.

Even if I had to burn everything else down to make it.