C5

"Do not worry about this broken room, Mother," said Kairo Vale in his youthful alpha tone, which relaxed me right away. "I was merely curious. This will not trouble my beast at all. We are content so long as we are together in any nook of our territory."

A grin formed on my face as I stroked his forehead with a finger. "Oh, my son, there is nothing for you to fear. Soon, we will live a glorious pack life, and I will hunt until exhaustion to make it happen!"

“Yes! Go, Mother!” Malek Thorncrest howled happily.

“You are the greatest luna in the world, Mother!” Leori cheered.

My smile widened as I looked at my three precious pups. “Alright, let’s move our paws. We will drop our travel gear in this room, and then I will take you all out to the lower-tier tavern for a massive feast of fresh venison.”

“That sounds wonderful!” they barks in unison.

After filling our bellies with roasted meat, the three little pups ran into the stone washroom to clean their fangs, while I began stripping the dusty furs from the bed to lay down our own blankets.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The sudden, violent rattling against the heavy wooden door made my heart jump into my throat.

Expecting the innkeeper to be demanding extra silver coins, I pulled the bolt back and opened the door. “Yes? How can I help”

“Seize the rogue female!” a harsh voice roared.

Before I could even shift or draw my claws, the lead enforcer of two massive warriors clad in black leather lunged forward and grabbed my arms.

Panic flooded my veins as I thrashed against his grip. “Who are you? What pack do you serve? Unclaw me! Let me go! You... mmph!”

A thick leather glove slammed over my mouth, cutting off my scream before I could alert my pups. They dragged me out into the freezing night, tossing me into an armored transport.

It did not take long before I was forced inside the towering obsidian walls of Myhill CrestHALL's high council hall.

Alpha Gali Blackmoor was there, sitting beneath the torches. He was a ruthless leader who spent every waking hour consumed by territorial expansion and the training of his only acknowledged son, Malek Thorncrest.

After dropping Sade Wintermere off at her family’s den, he had come straight to this secure fortress to review the boundary lines of a rival territory he planned to conquer by morning.

As he analyzed the strategic maps, Kairo Vale knocked heavily on the stone archway and stepped into the dim light.

“Alpha, the tracking pack has uncovered the truth,” Kairo Vale reported, bowing his head in absolute submission. “Those transport tires were shredded with highly condensed fire-powder capsules. But the pup’s background seems entirely ordinary. The family lost their sire winters ago, and a lone female raised them in the deep woods of Frostfang Hollow. They only entered the capital gates today. No hidden alliance. We have the pup’s mother held in the council chamber right now.”

Gali’s brow furrowed at the mention of military-grade fire-powder, setting down his command quill as he strode toward the council chamber.

Kairo Vale followed closely, knowing the Alpha’s mind was twisted with suspicion. Today, the small explosions had only disabled the transport’s wheels, leaving the passengers unharmed. It was a flawless execution of measuring the exact blast radius.

No ordinary rogue pup could control fire-powder with such precision.

Gali suspected a hidden enemy pack was pulling the strings, using a child to test the defenses of the Blackmoor line. Too many rival alphas had tried to take Gali down over the years; his beast could not afford a single moment of carelessness.

Inside the locked stone chamber, I was trembling, completely clueless about why I had been hunted. My heart went fast, thumping wildly against my ribs like a trapped bird.

“Who are you people? Why have you dragged a free wolf into your den? What do you want from me?” I yelled at the guards.

The heavy iron doors swung open with a loud, grinding creak.

Gali Blackmoor marched inside ahead of his elite warriors, his dominant alpha aura flooding the room so heavily it made me gasp for breath. He stood at a terrifying stature of six-foot-three, a king among wolves, and my eyes locked onto him instantly.

Then, my breath caught in total shock. I stared at him, my eyes widening as my wolf let out a silent, horrified whimper.

This male… his sharp jaw, the golden glint of his eyes, his very bone structure he looked almost exactly like an adult version of my boys, Kairo and Malek!

Was he the shadow stranger from the port? The brute who had ruined my life all those winters ago?

The sudden thought made my face contort with absolute anger, my fists clenching so hard my fingernails bit into my palms. My blood boiled, my breathing turning erratic.

The memories of that night were too agonizing to bear. That single encounter had destroyed everything! The scandal of an unwed pregnancy had left me cast out of the pack, the target of every vile insult the elders could throw. Whore. Traitor. Broken wolf. Those words had haunted my steps for six years.

As a mother, I cherished my three beautiful pups more than life itself.

But the bitterness of my past, the frostbite, and the starvation I endured in the wild—all of it was because of the male who had claimed me in the dark!

As Gali’s golden eyes locked onto my face, a faint flicker of confusion crossed his stoic features.

It wasn't that I was dazzlingly beautiful, but something about my scent and the shape of my face stirred a strange sense of familiarity deep within his beast a nagging feeling that our wolves had crossed paths before. Yet, no matter how hard he searched his memory, he could not place me.

Maintaining a cold, expressionless face, Gali strode over to the stone council table and sat down. He noticed me staring at him with a raw intensity that bordered on total hostility, and his brow furrowed in response.

Her pup had ruined his personal transport, and here she was, not kneeling for mercy, but daring to glare at an Alpha with absolute defiance.

The female had serious guts, just like her wild son. He would give her that.

“Why did you order your pup to destroy my pack transport?” Gali accused the moment he spoke, throwing the blame directly at my feet.

My fists shook with intense emotion, a scowl deepening on my face as his words echoed through the room. It seemed he truly did not recognize me.

Was it because the alcove had been completely dark that night, or was he playing a cruel game to mock me?

Uncertain if this dominant alpha was truly the monster from my past, I forced my claws to retract.

Struggling to keep my raging wolf under control, I probed cautiously, “You… your beast truly does not know who I am?”

“No.”

“Not at all?”

“Should my wolf recognize a rogue?”

I stood there, completely at a loss for words.

What was happening here?

He bore a striking resemblance to Kairo and Malek not completely identical, but the lineage was written in his face. Yet, he claimed he had never scented me before, and his alpha eyes held no deception. Even his deep voice sounded different from the frantic growls of the male from that night.

I studied Gali for a moment longer, fighting down the urge to scream. After all, in a territory filled with millions of wolves, similar faces and bloodlines were not impossible.

I forced my racing heartbeat to steady, focusing on the immediate danger. “If I am a stranger to your pack, why did your enforcers hunt me? Dragging a female from her den is a violation of the neutral treaty!”

Gali’s expression darkened as Kairo Vale stepped forward, his voice stern. “The Alpha already gave you the answer because your pup destroyed a sacred pack vehicle.”

“What?” I gasped, shaking my head. “There must be a mistake! My small pack just arrived in Myhill CrestHALL from the deep woods today. How could my young boy have the time or the strength to damage an Alpha’s armor?”

“Show her the scrying mirror footage,” Gali snapped impatiently.

With a wave of Kairo Vale's hand, the magic energy in the room flared, and the chaotic events at the transit gates began to play out above the stone table.

Although the boy in the vision wore a thick cloth mask, I recognized Malek instantly. I couldn't comprehend how the heavy tires had been turned to ash, but the deep gouges carved into the pack crest were definitely the work of my son's bone knife.

“I… I am deeply sorry,” I stammered, the anger draining out of me, replaced by pure terror for my child. “I did not know he had left the steps… The masked pup is indeed my son, but he is a good boy. He would never strike a transport without a reason. The female must have provoked his beast.”

Gali watched my micro-reactions closely, his inner wolf sensing that my panic was genuine. After a long silence, he leaned forward. “Does a rogue female truly let her young pups play with military fire-powder?”

“Fire-powder? Impossible! He is far too young to handle such lethal weapons!”

“Those heavy tires were melted by expertly crafted fire-capsules,” Gali countered, his voice dripping with ice.

My eyes widened in pure shock before I quickly smoothed my expression, rushing to defend my family. “I understand now! Your trackers have it all wrong. It wasn't war explosives; it was just small festive spark-capsules! My old pack line makes them for the seasonal moons; it is a family tradition. Malek loves helping his great-grandsire mix the colorful powders in the mountains, and he brought a few small capsules to the capital as a token from the old man. I apologize deeply I had no idea they would react so violently against northern silver. If my wolf had known, I never would have let him pack them in his furs.”

I spoke with absolute candor, my scent remaining perfectly clear of any deceit.

Gali kept his intense, golden gaze pinned to my face for a long, suffocating moment. Finally, his beast accepted the truth. Festive spark-powders operated on the exact same alchemical principles as war explosives, and it was a known fact that the ancient craftsmen living in the isolated valleys of Frostfang Hollow possessed formidable, unpredictable skills.