登入The sheep track was a nightmare of loose shale and vertical drops. My lungs burned with the kind of cold that felt like swallowing glass. Every time I reached for a handhold, the rock was slick with moss or ice, threatening to send me sliding back down toward the man I had just left behind. Donovan was right behind me, his breathing a rhythmic, heavy grunt. He didn’t talk. No one did. We were too busy trying to keep our footing on a path that shouldn't have existed.We reached a small plateau where the ridge leveled out before the final climb. The fog was thinner up here, but the air was colder. It bit at my exposed skin. I stopped to catch my breath, my hands on my knees, watching the steam rise off my own skin.“He’s here.”Donovan’s voice was low, barely a vibration. He didn’t draw his knife. He just stood there, his eyes fixed on a cluster of pines at the far edge of the plateau.Rowan stepped out from behind the trees.He wasn't leaning this time. He wasn't smiling that thin, arr
The sound of the pack moving through the brush changed. It wasn't a single, rhythmic pulse anymore. It was staggered. There was too much space between the footsteps. We reached a small rise where the trees thinned out into a patch of grey shale and scrub brush, and the momentum finally died.I stopped and stood on the edge of the rise and looked at the ridge ahead.Kael stopped five feet behind me. The air between us was cold and dead. Behind him, the remaining wolves slowed to a halt. They didn't form a circle. They didn't look to him for the next command. They just stood where they were, sweating and bleeding into the dirt.The shift wasn't emotional. The glue that held the pack to Kael’s back had dried up and cracked. You could see it in the way they stood. Some were looking at Kael’s boots. Others were looking at me.I moved. I didn't walk toward the center. I walked to the left, toward a sheep track that cut away from the main ridge path. It was steep, rocky, and went against eve
The fog didn't just sit in the trees, it clung to our skin like wet wool. We had stopped moving, but the air felt heavier than the march. Rylan was leaning against a tree, his eyes closed. Donovan was staring at the ground, his hands twitching over the hilt of a knife he didn't have a target for. Kael stood apart from them. He was looking into the thickness of the woods, his back to me, his shoulders hard. He looked like he was still in command and had a plan. I walked toward him. My boots made a wet, sucking sound in the muck. I didn't stop until I was three feet behind him. “What aren’t you telling me?” My voice was flat. It didn't have the shake I felt in my knees. I wasn't looking for comfort or a lie to make the night easier. I wanted the truth, and I wanted it before another man walked into the trees to die. Kael didn’t turn around or shift his weight. “We need to keep moving, Lyra. The longer we stand here, the more Magnus closes the circle.” “Stop talking about Mag
No one moved.We stood in the cold mud where Miller and Rowan had left us. The trees were just black wood and wet bark, but they felt like a cage. Kael didn’t give an order to march. No one asked for one. Moving blindly wasn't a plan anymore, it was just a way to get tired before we died.Rylan slumped against a cedar. He looked like hell. His face was the color of ash, and his breathing was a wet, ragged sound in the quiet. He peeled the bloody cloth back from his side, hissed through his teeth, and shoved it back down. His fingers were slick with blood.“We stop,” Rylan said. Every word cost him. “We stop right here.”Donovan didn't like that. He paced a tight circle, his boots splashing in the muck. “We stop, we’re dead. We’re giving Rowan time to reevaluate and pick us off one by one.”“Rowan isn't the problem,” Rylan said. He looked up, his eyes bloodshot. “Think. Rowan is the noise. He’s the one who shows up to shove us and break the line. He’s the distraction. But he’s not the
We were moving too fast. Breathing was loud, boots were slipping on wet roots, and no one was looking back at the bodies we’d left behind. The silence was the kind that hurt your ears. “You corrected the path. That was the right instinct.”The voice was calm. It was close.We all stopped. Kael’s hand went to his side, his body coiled.Rowan was standing ten feet ahead, leaning against a tree as if he’d been waiting for a long time. He looked clean, while we looked like hell.He didn't look at Kael or at the line of wolves behind him. He looked straight at me.“It’s a shame,” Rowan said. “All that effort just to end up in the same place.”Kael stepped in front of me. “Move, Rowan.”Rowan finally flicked his gaze to Kael. He didn't look threatened. He looked bored. “Why? So you can walk them into another clearing? How many more are you going to lose today, Alpha?”He looked past Kael’s shoulder, his voice rising just enough to carry to the back of the line. “They aren’t even hunting yo
Donovan slowed first. His boots dragged in the dirt as his body refused to take the next step.“…tell me that’s not them.”Nobody answered.Kael kept walking. Two steps, then three, until the shapes in the brush were clear. Then he stopped. Rylan came up on his right, one hand clamped over his side. He didn't look at Kael. He looked straight ahead.“Yeah,” Rylan said. “That’s them.”Three of them. The ones who had walked out.They were laid out in the open, right in the middle of our path. They hadn't been torn apart or dragged into the dark. They had been placed.Donovan let out a short, dry sound that wasn't quite a laugh. “They didn’t even make it a mile.”Lilith moved in from the side. She crouched near the first body, then thought better of it and stood back up. “No blood trail leading in,” she said. “No signs of a chase.”Rylan’s jaw tightened. “They didn’t run.”“Don’t guess,” Donovan snapped.“I’m not guessing. Look at the ground.”Donovan looked. There was no churned earth. N
“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
The rogue’s laughter cut through the night like a blade, sharp and cruel. I felt it reverberate against my ribs, my wolf snarling beneath my skin, every instinct screaming danger. Kael stood beside me, tall, still, silver eyes fixed on the intruder as if measuring him with a predator’s precision. N
“You’re not even listening.” Lilith’s voice cut through the conversation just as Donovan finished speaking, and I realized I had not caught a single word he said. I looked up at them, all three watching me now. “I am,” I said. Faolan let out a quiet laugh and leaned back slightly. “You’re not.
“Say it.”Lilith didn’t raise her voice, but the way she said it cut clean through the noise of the training yard.I didn’t look at her. “Say what?” “The thing you’ve been circling since morning,” she replied, stepping into my path. “You’re not subtle, Lyra.”Faolan leaned against the fence near







