LOGIN“Are you always this comfortable walking into another Alpha’s territory, or is today special?”The question was out before I could hold it back.Aurora turned to face me. She didn't look shocked or even annoyed. She looked like she had been expecting me to react from the moment she arrived.Up close, she was worse. It wasn't that she was trying to be intimidating, it was that she wasn't trying at all. She stood there with a calm that felt like an insult while the rest of us were still dealing with the aftershocks of what we’ve been through for the past few days. She looked like she belonged here, and I hated her for it.“I go where I’m allowed,” she said. Her voice was annoyingly flat.“Allowed?,” I repeated. I let the word rot between us. “That’s a convenient way to put it.”Aurora didn't flinch. “Oh, you disagree?”I stepped closer. I didn't care if Kael was watching. I wanted to see if I could actually rattle her. “I think most people wait for an invitation.”Aurora tilted her head
The training yard was a mess of half-hearted movement. It wasn't the usual roar of bodies hitting the dirt; it was the sound of wolves going through the motions because they didn't know what else to do with their hands. People were talking, but the voices were low, guarded, like they were afraid that speaking too loudly might draw blood. The air didn't just feel different, it felt stagnant, thick with the smell of sweat and the kind of fear that doesn't wash off.Lyra stood by the edge of the ring, her fingers digging into her own arms. She watched Donovan. He was working with one of the kids, showing him how to plant his feet, but his patience was weird. It was too quiet. Usually, Donovan would be barking or shoving, but now he just moved like he was made of glass.Everyone was broken in a way that didn't show on the skin.Kael was off to the side, his head bent toward Rylan. He looked steady enough, but his eyes were never still. They were darting toward the gates, toward the treeli
The quiet didn't last. It never did.Kael let them have a few minutes anyway. It was just enough time for their heart rates to slow and for Lilith to finish the immediate patchwork on Faolan. He stood on the edge of the group, his focus already pulling away from the huddle and reaching toward the boundaries. Something felt wrong, but it wasn't the kind of wrong that came from a sudden threat. It was the skin-crawling sensation of a familiar place being touched by a stranger.He walked toward the nearest boundary marker without a word. He knew every knot in the wood of these trees, every dip in the terrain. When the marker came into view, a deep notch in an old oak. He stopped.It was still there, but it was strange.Kael crouched, his fingers tracing the edge of the cut. The scent was theirs, but the application was different. It had been smoothed over, the edges of the carving pressed down as if someone had spent time studying the mark before replicating it. This wasn't a breach by a
The boundary didn't announce itself with a roar or a sign. It was a subtle, sickening shift in the air pressure, the sudden, familiar scent of damp pine and old earth rising through the soles of their boots. They had spent so long running through dirt that wasn't theirs that the taste of home should have been a relief. Instead, it felt like a mourning.Kael felt the snap of the border against his skin and stopped.Home. The word felt hollow, a ghost of a concept that didn't fit the jagged reality of the blood drying on his hands. It should have meant something, but as he looked at the shadows stretching across the valley, he felt nothing but the weight of what they had dragged back with them.“Here,” he rasped.The word didn't need volume to carry. It cut through the heavy rhythm of their footsteps, and the pack didn't just stop, they surrendered to the earth. They stood like broken things, their bodies finally catching up to the fact that the hunt was paused, even if the danger wasn'
They kept moving, but the shape of the group had changed in a way none of them could correct by simply pushing forward. The path opened ahead of them, wide enough to move faster, clear enough that nothing forced them to slow, yet the pace never returned. It settled into something uneven, held together by effort rather than instinct. No one called it out. No one tried to fix it. They all felt it. Kael took the front without saying it, his focus set on the terrain ahead, but his attention refused to stay there. It kept pulling back, measuring distance, tracking rhythm, marking every small break in the way they moved together. They were still a unit. But they no longer moved like one. Rylan ranged wider than before, cutting through the trees in longer arcs, his attention split between the forest and the group. He checked the perimeter more often, but each time he returned, his gaze lingered on them a second longer than necessary, like he was confirming something he didn’t trust. L
Lyra’s hand settled against Faolan’s chest, and for a moment, nothing happened. The clearing held its breath with her. Kael did not move. He did not speak. Every instinct he had was sharpened to a single point, fixed on the contact between them, on the decision he had already made by allowing this to happen. There was no stepping in now. No pulling her back if it went wrong. Whatever came next would come through her. Lyra felt that weight. Not from him. From herself. The first time she had reached for this, it had taken her. It had broken through her without permission, without direction, tearing outward because it had more force than she could contain. She had not understood it. She had barely survived it. This time, she refused to let that happen. She drew in a breath and held it, forcing her focus inward instead of outward, searching for that same place inside her without letting it consume everything else. It was there. Waiting. Not wild, not distant. Closer than she expect
“Close the inner gates and keep them shut. No one leaves without my word.”Kael did not need to raise his voice for the command to take hold. The wolves nearest the entrance moved immediately, not out of fear, but out of habit shaped by a leader who did not repeat himself. The heavy doors began to
“You were there the night my pack died.”The words tore out of me before I could stop them, rough and unsteady, carrying more than I meant to show. I had held them in for too long, shaped them into something sharper, something controlled, but now that they were out, there was no pulling them back
“Half the pack thinks the traitor is standing next to them at dinner tonight.”Faolan dropped onto the wooden bench across from me as she said it, pushing a bowl aside with her elbow to make space. The longhouse was fuller than usual, but it wasn’t loud the way Nightfang meals normally were. Voices
“Tell me again why Rylan thinks dawn patrols are good for morale.”Lilith dropped onto the bench beside me with a groan and leaned back against the wooden rail behind us. The last of the evening light had faded from the training yard, leaving the lanterns along the fence to throw long shadows acros







