The Rival’s Shadow

The cabin still smelled of smoke, pine, and blood. Lena lay on the furs long after Kade dismissed the pack, every muscle in her body screaming. Her skin was raw where the snow had burned it, her knuckles split, her ribs aching from the blows he hadn’t softened.

She should have hated him for it. She should have hated the pack for watching, for laughing, for daring her to fail. Instead, what clawed at her chest was the same thing that clawed at her throat whenever his eyes found hers: heat. The same relentless, searing pull that had started the moment his teeth pierced her skin.

The bond.

Her hand drifted to her neck. The skin was smooth, but beneath it burned something unnatural, something alive. It pulsed when she thought of him. It throbbed when she tried not to.

She turned over, burying her face in the furs. “God, what’s wrong with me?”

The door creaked. Her heart leapt before she could stop it.

Not Kade.

This scent was different. Wrong.

She sat up fast.

A shadow lingered in the doorway, tall and thin. A wolf, though not like the ones she had seen circling Kade’s command. This one reeked of iron and rot. His clothes were torn, his eyes pale and sunken, as if some disease had hollowed him from the inside.

Her voice cracked. “Who the hell are you?”

The stranger stepped inside, slow and deliberate, his boots crunching over stray pine needles on the floor. He didn’t bow. He didn’t ask permission. And that alone told her enough—he wasn’t Blackwood.

“You’re her,” he rasped, voice like rusted chains dragging through gravel. “The human. The one marked by Wilder.” His smile split his face, too wide, too wrong. “He’ll want to know it’s true.”

Fear iced her blood. “Who’ll want to know?”

The wolf tilted his head. “The Alpha in the east. The one who doesn’t let women live once they’re bitten.” His grin sharpened. “He says if you’re truly bloodmarked, you belong to him. He’ll gut Wilder and take you for his own.”

Lena’s knees threatened to give out, but anger steadied her. She forced herself to stand taller. “You think you can just walk into Blackwood territory and threaten me?”

The wolf’s laugh was wet and broken. “Not threaten. Promise.”

He tossed something at her feet.

It landed with a heavy, wet thud. A wolf’s paw—severed, blood still dripping, claws snapped.

Lena stumbled back, bile burning her throat.

“Tell your Alpha,” the messenger said, stepping closer, his teeth yellow with rot. “Tell him the shadow’s already here. And tell him she bleeds next.” His pale eyes flicked to her throat, to the place Kade had bitten her. His tongue slid over his lips. “The rival claims you.”

Her body moved before she thought. She snatched the iron fire poker from the hearth and swung. The metal cracked against his ribs with a sick thud. The wolf staggered, coughing blood, but he only grinned wider.

“Good,” he rasped. “Fight. He likes them wild.”

Then, before she could strike again, he staggered to the door and melted into the snow-dark forest, leaving bloody paw prints in his wake.

Lena slammed the door shut, bolted it, her chest heaving. The severed paw still lay on the floor, a grotesque token.

Her stomach lurched, but she forced herself to pick it up with a scrap of cloth, her hands shaking so violently she nearly dropped it. If she left it here, Kade would know she’d frozen. She’d seen enough of his contempt to know weakness only made her prey.

But carrying it didn’t make her strong. It only made her sick.

When the door burst open again, she nearly screamed.

Kade stood in the threshold, his hair damp from snow, his chest bare, his golden eyes already narrowing at the scent of blood. “What happened?”

Lena swallowed, holding out the bundle of cloth. Her voice trembled despite her best effort. “A messenger came.” She unwrapped it just enough for him to see. “He left this.”

The cabin seemed to shrink under the weight of his silence.

Then, with slow, deliberate steps, Kade crossed the room, took the paw from her hands, and hurled it into the fire. Flames devoured it, smoke curling black against the rafters.

“Did he touch you?”

“No,” she said too quickly. “He—he only talked. He said…” She hesitated, but the memory of the wolf’s words twisted like knives. “He said the rival Alpha wants me. That I’m his now.”

Kade’s face shifted, not into surprise, not into confusion, but into a fury so sharp she swore the air thickened. His body trembled with it, his hands fisting at his sides.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, guttural, shaking with rage. “He dares.”

The bond inside her flared, a hot pulse that matched his fury. She almost staggered under it.

“Kade…” she whispered. “What does it mean?”

He turned his eyes on her then, molten gold, brighter than firelight, brighter than the flames consuming the severed paw. His voice was a vow and a threat all at once.

“It means war.”

Kade’s fury didn’t simmer. It erupted.

He stormed from the cabin, bare-chested in the snow, the firelight still burning in his eyes. Lena stumbled after him, her breath steaming, her heart slamming as though it shared his rage through the tether of the bond.

The Blackwood wolves were already gathering, pulled by some instinct that told them their Alpha was about to bleed thunder into the night. Torches flared in the ringed clearing, firelight licking at fangs and eyes that gleamed yellow, red, amber.

Kade strode to the center. Snow hissed beneath his feet, steam rising where his heat burned the frost. He raised his voice, a growl that seemed to shake the trees themselves.

“Tonight, the Shadow dares cross our border.”

A ripple of snarls moved through the pack.

Kade’s gaze swept them, sharp and merciless. “He sent his rot to my den. He spoke his threats in front of my mate.”

The word cut through the air. Mate.

Dozens of wolves stiffened. Some gasped, some growled. Mara’s face twisted into something between shock and venom, her nails biting into her palms.

Kade didn’t flinch. He wanted them to hear it. To choke on it.

“He says she belongs to him.” His jaw flexed, his teeth lengthening as his fury strained against his human form. “That he’ll tear her from me. That he’ll claim what is mine.”

His voice dropped, thick with violence. “You all know the law. A mark is binding. A mate is sacred. To try to take her…” His eyes glowed like molten suns. “Is death.”

The pack erupted—some howling their loyalty, others muttering discontent. The name of the rival Alpha slithered through the voices like poison: Ronan.

Lena’s breath hitched. So the Shadow had a name.

Kade lifted a hand, and the noise cut like a blade. “Ronan thinks I’ll bow. That I’ll break. That I’ll hand her over like a lamb to slaughter.” His smile was cruel, a baring of teeth. “But Blackwood does not bow. Blackwood does not break.”

He turned slowly, deliberately, so every wolf met his burning gaze. “And if Ronan thinks he can put his teeth on what’s mine, then I will put his head on a spike at our border. Let the crows strip it bare.”

The pack howled, voices rising like a storm. Snow fell in a frenzy, the trees trembling with the sound.

Lena stood at the edge, her breath sharp, her heart pounding. She had never seen fury like this, never felt power ripple through air and bone the way it did when Kade claimed her before them all. Her skin burned where his teeth had scarred her.

But not all the faces in the crowd howled in unity. Mara’s eyes gleamed with challenge, her lips curving in a cruel smile that promised trouble. And others—wolves Lena couldn’t name—watched her with hunger, with resentment, as though Kade’s vow had just painted a target on her back.

Kade stepped down from the circle, the air still vibrating from the force of his command. When his eyes found hers, the bond surged so violently her knees weakened.

He crossed the distance in three strides, his hand gripping her chin, forcing her to look up into that molten fury.

“You hear me?” he growled, low enough for only her. “He will not touch you. No one will. Not while I breathe.”

His mouth hovered a breath away from hers, the whole pack watching, their howls fading to silence as if the forest itself strained to hear her answer.

Lena’s heart stuttered, her pulse screaming against her skin. She should have pulled away. She should have told him she wasn’t his, that she hadn’t chosen this.

But the bond burned too hot. Her voice broke before she could stop it. “I hear you.”

Kade’s thumb dragged across her jaw, his smile sharp with satisfaction. He straightened, lifting his voice once more for the pack.

“Tomorrow, we hunt. Ronan wants war?” His eyes flashed, gold against the storm. “Then war is what he’ll choke on.”

The pack roared, their howls shattering the night.

Lena shivered. Not from cold. From the shadow that had finally stepped out of rumor and into her blood. From the truth that she had become the spark that could set two Alphas on a path to ruin.

And from the terrifying, intoxicating fact that part of her—God help her—wanted to be worth going to war for.