The packhouse did not sleep. Even as night gave way to gray morning, lanterns still burned in the corridors and wolves patrolled with sharp eyes. Whispers filled the halls, quiet and urgent, passing from ear to ear. An intruder had breached the Alpha’s home. No one felt safe.
Serena sat by the window of her room, arms wrapped tight around her knees. She had not closed her eyes since the intruder’s words echoed through her bones. You are the key. No matter how she tried to push them away, they coiled back around her mind.The door creaked open. Lucian entered without knocking, shoulders stiff, exhaustion etched into his face. His shirt was torn at the collar, a smear of blood dried along his forearm. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it for a moment, as if holding the weight of the whole pack.“You should rest,” Serena said softly.His eyes lifted to hers, sharp but softened by weariness. “So should you.”She managed a weak smThe fortress did not rest that night.Even after the battlefield was cleared and the dead were counted, the halls hummed with unease. Wolves whispered in corners, their eyes flicking toward me like I was a torch about to ignite. The scent of smoke lingered in the stones, seared into memory.I stayed at Lucian’s side, refusing to let him out of my sight. His wound was sealed, but the fire had left its mark beneath his skin thin veins of gold, pulsing faintly like embers. When he moved, the light stirred, as though alive.I had done that.Every time I looked at it, guilt gnawed through me.Lucian caught me staring as he sat on the edge of our chamber bed, unwrapping the blood-soaked bandages. His chest was bare, muscles taut, the scar angry and new. The golden threads flickered faintly in the wound’s shape, refusing to fade.“You saved me,” he said, voice low.I shook my head. “I cursed you.”“You think I care?” His gaze burned. “Serena, if you hadn’t” He broke off, jaw tightening. His
The fortress reeked of ash and burned stone.Dawn broke gray, dragging smoke into the light. Wolves limped through the wreckage, shoulders hunched, eyes hollow. Some hauled buckets to douse what embers remained, others dragged bodies charred, broken, still. The east wing was gone, reduced to a blackened husk.And at the center of it all, Lucian stood like a pillar of iron, giving orders with a voice that cut through despair.“Clear the rubble. Account for every wolf. Nobody is left behind.”He moved with his usual precision, but I felt the strain under his skin. Our bond was thin, fragile, still trembling from last night’s crack. I clung to it anyway, like clutching a fraying rope over an abyss.Whispers stalked me through the ruins.“She called the flames.”“She made them burn gold.”“She saved us.”“Or cursed us further.”The voices blurred until I couldn’t tell praise from accusation. I wanted to scream at them that I had chosen again and again to fight for them. But their eyes had
The seer’s voice still rang in my skull when the first scream split the night.At first, I thought it was part of the dream the endless whisper of choice, the warning that had stalked me since the mark first seared my skin. But then came the second scream, sharper, real, followed by the clang of steel and the thunder of boots racing through the halls.I bolted upright.Lucian was already awake, golden eyes flaring in the half-dark, his blade snatched from its stand. His voice cut the air like iron.“Stay behind me.”The door shook with pounding fists before it burst open, smoke spilling inside. A soldier stumbled in, face streaked with soot, coughing.“Alpha! Fire in the east wing storage halls are burning!”Lucian’s jaw tightened. “How?”The soldier shook his head, trembling. “No lanterns, no torches the flames just—just appeared. Black, then red. They’re spreading too fastI was already moving, throwing on my cloak, ignoring the soldier’s alarmed glance at me. “We have to help them.
The storm ended as suddenly as it began.One moment the battlefield roared with shadows, wolves locked in death’s embrace, snow blackened with fire and smoke. The next, the darkness folded in on itself like a curtain drawing back. The Shadow Alpha’s host retreated not defeated, never that but vanished, leaving only silence and the stink of ash behind.The ground was a graveyard. Mirek’s wolves lay broken beside ours, their blood steaming in the cold night. Some still writhed, crying for healers. Others would never rise again.I stood at the center, chest heaving, Lucian’s hand locked around mine as though by strength alone he could keep me tethered. My flames had guttered out, leaving my body weak, my mark burning faintly like embers under skin.But the silence was worse than the screams.It was the sound of doubt.Of fear.Of wolves realizing the Alpha they followed now fought a war against something not of flesh and blood and that his mate was the bridge between worlds.Mirek strode
The first strike came with the wind.Not claws. Not steel.Shadows.They spilled across the borderlands like spilled ink, blotting out the moon, crawling over the ridge where Mirek’s rebels had made camp. Wolves screamed in the distance some ours, some his cut short with a wet, final sound.Lucian stood at the parapet of the fortress wall, his jaw carved in stone, his golden eyes burning as the night itself seemed to move against us.“They’re here,” he said.Not Bloodfangs. Not rival packs.The Shadow Alpha.The mark beneath my sleeve seared, hotter than fire. It pulsed in rhythm with the storm sweeping in, like it recognized its master’s hand. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood just to keep from crying out.“Serena?” Lucian’s gaze snapped to me, too sharp, too knowing.“I feel him,” I whispered, the words like poison on my tongue. “He’s close.”The horns sounded, rolling across the valley. This time not to warn of wolves at our gates, but something older, fouler. Somet
The war drums of betrayal still echoed in my ears.Even after the fighting in the hall had been beaten back wolves dragged apart, weapons torn from furious hands the scent of blood lingered heavy in the air. Some limped to their dens, wounds raw but pride intact. Others were carried, broken and silent, into the night.Lucian stood at the center of it all, chest heaving, golden eyes burning with a fury that could set the walls aflame. He had not fallen, not even bent beneath the storm. But his pack had.And I—I had.The mark on my palm throbbed, molten pain searing up my wrist. I pressed my hand against my chest, praying no one saw the glow beneath my skin. But Lucian did. I felt his eyes on me like a blade.“Go,” he barked at the survivors. “Tend your wounds. Tend your dead. Tomorrow, we decide who still belongs to this pack.”They scattered with low growls, some throwing glares at me, others bowing reluctantly before slipping into shadow. Mirek was gone vanished with those who follow