What the scouts found alive.

Chapter 4

The horn sounded again, closer this time, the note sharp enough to cut through stone. Drake rose to his full height and the air around him seemed to tighten. Even standing he stayed inside a rough circle of darker rock at the center of the chamber, as if an invisible line held him there.

“I cannot cross the inner marks,” he said. His voice stayed low. “The curse keeps me inside this sanctuary. If they come for you beyond that line, I will not reach you in time.”

I looked at the chains on my wrists, then at the sealed doors. “Then what am I supposed to do? Sit here and wait for them to finish what they started?”

“Stay close to me.” He stepped back a fraction, making space inside the circle. “As close as you can. They will expect bones. Finding you alive will make them act fast.”

Boots struck the outer steps. Voices carried through the heavy doors, casual at first, then sharper when no one answered their calls. Something heavy scraped against the stone. The doors groaned open. Torchlight spilled across the floor in a long orange wedge.

Four men entered. Silver blades already in their hands. The lead scout was older, face lined, eyes moving quickly over the chamber until they landed on me. He stopped short.

“She is alive.”

The others fanned out behind him. One of them laughed once, short and disbelieving. “The mountain missed. Or it is playing with its food.”

I stayed on my feet inside the circle beside Drake. The torchlight reached him now. The scouts saw the scars, the size of him, the way he watched them without blinking. Their casual stance disappeared.

The leader raised his blade. “Kill the girl. We take the head back as proof the offering is done. Whatever that thing is, we deal with it after.”

They moved as one. Two came straight for me. The other two kept their eyes on Drake, blades low and ready. I backed up until my shoulder brushed Drake’s arm. The chains clinked.

“She is under my protection,” Drake said. The words rolled out quiet and final.

The nearest scout lunged. His silver knife flashed toward my throat. Drake’s hand closed around the man’s wrist before the blade could touch skin. Bone snapped with a wet crack. The scout screamed. Drake yanked him forward across the invisible line and drove a fist into his chest. The sound that followed was soft and final. The body dropped.

The second scout hesitated half a second too long. Drake caught him by the front of his leather armor and lifted him off the ground like he weighed nothing. He slammed the man into the stone floor hard enough that the torch in the doorway jumped. Blood spread under the scout’s head in a dark pool.

The remaining two did not run. Training held them in place. One circled left, trying to get an angle on me. The other went high, blade aimed at Drake’s neck. Silver bit into Drake’s shoulder. He snarled, the sound more animal than human, and backhanded the man across the chamber. The scout hit a pillar and slid down it, not moving.

The last one reached me. His free hand grabbed the chain between my wrists and jerked hard. I stumbled forward out of the circle. Pain flared through my shoulders. He raised the knife.

Drake roared. The sound shook dust from the ceiling. He crossed the short distance in two strides, still somehow held by the curse yet close enough to seize the scout by the back of the neck. He wrenched the man away from me and drove him face-first into the altar stone at the center of the room. Once. Twice. The third time the body went limp and stayed that way.

Silence rushed back in. My ears rang. Blood smelled thick in the air. I stayed where I had fallen, wrists still bound, staring at the four bodies. Drake stood over the last one, chest rising and falling hard, the silver cut on his shoulder already knitting shut in a way no normal wolf’s would.

A wet cough broke the quiet. One of the scouts, the one Drake had thrown into the pillar, was still breathing. He dragged himself toward the open doors on his elbows, leaving a smear of red behind him. His broken leg trailed at a wrong angle. He did not look back. He just kept crawling, breath hitching, until he reached the threshold.

Drake started after him and stopped short as if he had walked into a wall. His hand flexed in the air. The curse held.

The scout pulled himself over the last stone and into the night. A moment later his voice rose outside, raw and desperate, carrying across the mountain path.

“The First Alpha lives! Sound the alarm! The First Alpha is awake!”

Another horn blast answered him, longer and louder than the first, rolling down toward the packs below.