Chapter 6

The enemy pack came faster than I remembered.

The first howl had barely ended when bodies crashed through the trees. Paws struck hard earth. Someone screamed near the eastern fence. Then flame caught the side of a cabin and ran up the dry boards so quickly it looked alive.

The Moonlight Trial did not only show us the past. It gave it back its smell and sound.

Smoke scraped the inside of my throat. Burning resin snapped in the walls. Somewhere behind the cabins, pups were crying hard enough to lose their voices.

"Enemy pack!"

"Get the pups out first!"

It was happening exactly as it had twelve years ago.

Vera's first response was to search the crowd.

"Erin's gone," she said, too quickly. "She's the one who sold our routes last time. She must have gone to—"

The front door of the nearest cabin burst open before she could finish.

A pup stumbled out on all fours, coughing black smoke. A second came behind him. Then a third.

My eighteen-year-old self came out last.

Blood had soaked one shoulder where an enemy wolf had raked me. My hair was singed at one side. I had one pup under each arm and was pushing the others ahead of me with my knee.

"North!"

"Run to the stone shed and don't look back!"

The stone hall went so quiet that the crack of burning wood sounded like a bone breaking.

Someone whispered, "She was saving them."

Ryan did not answer.

His face had gone rigid.

Then his younger self charged into the sanctuary from the opposite side.

He had not been there when the attack began. He had turned back at the last moment after hearing the alarm.

An enemy wolf caught him from behind and drove a silver blade deep into his shoulder.

Young Ryan hit the hallway wall hard enough to crack wood. His shift came on wrong and violent. His hands lengthened into claws. His eyes flashed wolf-bright. Smoke, silver, and pain stripped away everything he knew except the need to survive.

Someone tried to reach him.

Ryan's claws opened the man's chest before anyone could stop him.

Outside the vision, present-day Ryan went white.

"No," he said under his breath.

Inside the memory, I was already only a few steps from the exit.

Cold night air was spilling through the broken doorway. I had gotten the pups out. I could have kept walking.

Then, from deep inside the burning corridor, I heard a strangled growl.

I knew that sound.

I stopped.

Present-day Ryan stepped forward as if he could put himself between me and the past.

"Don't go back."

My younger self turned around and ran into the fire.

"Erin!"

His shout echoed uselessly through the trial.

Inside the corridor, smoke had turned the ceiling black. Fire dripped from the rafters in bright pieces. I found Ryan half-shifted on the floor, striking at anyone who came near him.

When I knelt, his claws drove toward my shoulder.

They stopped against my skin.

His wolf caught my scent.

The huge half-formed animal trembled once, then slowly lowered its head until its forehead hit my shoulder.

I wrapped both arms around him.

"Ryan. Look at me."

His breathing came in broken snarls.

"It's me."

His claws withdrew.

"We're getting out."

He was too heavy to carry. I hooked my arms beneath his and dragged him across the floor one brutal inch at a time.

The heat blistered the back of my hands. The wound in my shoulder tore wider under his weight. Smoke burned so deep in my lungs that every breath felt edged with metal.

Behind us, something small kept crying for Mara.

Above us, a beam split with a sound like a gunshot.

Present-day Ryan stared at the blood trail my younger self left across the floor.

Something in his expression began to crack.

I got him to the doorway.

Young Ryan collapsed outside, but his hand stayed locked in the hem of my shirt.

I bent down and pulled at his fingers.

"Don't..."

It was the only word he could force out.

For one second, I stopped.

The night outside was cold. His blood was hot on my hands. Behind me, the sanctuary was becoming a furnace.

I touched my forehead to his.

"Just stay alive."

Then I heard Mara cough from inside.

Two pups were still crying with her.

I stood.

Ryan's fingers caught the leather cord around my wrist.

The cord snapped.

Half stayed clenched in his hand.

I looked down at it and managed a breathless smile.

"You can buy me a new one later."

Then I ran back into the fire.

Present-day Ryan made a sound that did not belong in a human throat.

For an instant, the moonlight around him flickered and showed another memory over the burning corridor: an oil lamp, my wrist in his hand, his forehead against mine.

When I find my pack, you're coming with me.

The plan.

Ryan staggered.

Inside the cabin, I found Mara pinned under a fallen cabinet. One pup was trapped beneath the table beside her. Another had crawled into the corner and was screaming at the flames.

I pulled the first pup free. My sleeve caught fire.

I beat it out with my bare hand and smelled burned cloth, then burned hair.

The second pup refused to move until I shoved it toward the window.

"Go!"

Mara tried to stand and collapsed.

I got my shoulder beneath her arm and pushed her forward while the ceiling groaned above us.

Outside, people dragged Mara through the window.

The last pup followed.

For one second, I was alone in the room.

The crying stopped.

That silence was worse than the screaming.

I looked toward the door.

Through smoke and flame, I could see Ryan outside on his knees, half-conscious, still clutching the broken piece of leather cord.

He was alive.

Relief loosened something inside me.

"Good," my younger self whispered.

The beam above me broke.

Fire came down in a sheet.

The trial did not turn away.

For one terrible second, everyone in the hall saw my silhouette inside the flames. They saw me raise an arm against heat that could not be blocked. They heard my breath catch once and then disappear beneath the roar.

Present-day Ryan clutched his head.

The memories came back all at once.

His first shift, when I had stayed awake with his wolf until dawn.

The winter meat he pretended not to eat.

The ugly leather cord.

My laugh under the oil lamp.

His wolf recognizing me before either of us had the courage to name what we were.

When I find my pack, you're coming with me.

Then the fire.

My fingers prying his hand away.

Just stay alive.

"No."

Ryan lurched toward the flames.

Several people caught him from behind.

His wolf woke with him.

It did not rise cleanly or proudly. The black shadow tore itself out of twelve years of silence and slammed toward the burning vision as if it could still reach me. Its claws shrieked across the stone. It hit the boundary once, twice, then threw its head back and howled.

Every adult wolf in the hall went still.

They knew that sound.

It was the sound of a wolf realizing its fated mate had been torn away while it was helpless to follow.

"Erin!"

Ryan screamed my name into the fire.

Not traitor.

Not curse.

My name.

The flames collapsed into moonlight.

Ryan dropped to his knees in the sudden darkness, breathing as if he had just been dragged out of the fire a second time.

His wolf remained pressed against the place where the vision had vanished, claws still digging into bare stone.

I walked toward him.

He looked up.

For the first time since I had returned, there was recognition in his eyes.

"Erin," he said.

My throat tightened, but my voice came out steady.

"You finally remember me."

I looked at the man who had once promised to take me with him when he found his pack.

"But I've been dead for twelve years."