Chapter 11. Into The Wild

The path twisted like a serpent beneath Samantha’s feet, the damp earth muffling her steps as the trees thickened around her. Dawn had barely broken, casting a pale light over the Black Ridge Mountains, but the forest ahead swallowed the sun whole. Fog curled around tree trunks, ghostlike and cold. Her breaths came shallow, not from exhaustion—but from the bone-deep awareness that she was no longer protected, no longer wanted.

Behind her, three guards trudged in silence. They weren’t the cruel type—at least, not like the ones who had laughed when her name was spat with scorn before the Council. These ones were quieter. Older. Their steps slower, less sure.

The youngest of the three, a tall man with russet hair and a scar slicing through one brow, kept glancing her way, guilt etched in the lines of his face. His name was Kael. She remembered him faintly—he’d once helped a pup from a mud pit during a storm. That had been years ago. Before her world collapsed.

“You don’t have to look at me like that,” Samantha said hoarsely, her voice raw from hours of silence. “Like I’m already dead.”

Kael blinked, startled by her words. “That’s not what I—”

But she turned away, trudging forward. She didn’t want his pity. Pity was a poor substitute for justice.

They had walked for miles now, far past the boundary markers that separated Black Ridge territory from the old lands. There were no longer patrol stones or carved runes in the trees. Just wilderness. Raw, unguarded wilderness.

“This is where our duty ends,” said the eldest guard at last. His voice was gravel, and his eyes dimmed with something that looked too much like regret. “We’re not allowed to cross the old border. The forest beyond this point is considered… cursed.”

Samantha stopped walking. She looked at them one by one, her face unreadable. “Then go.”

But the third guard—leaner, quieter, with black eyes that never quite met hers—shifted uncomfortably.

Kael stepped forward. “We didn’t come all this way just to drop you at the edge and run,” he said quietly. “We thought… maybe you should know.”

She turned her head slightly. “Know what?”

The older guard hesitated. “There’s a place. Deep in the mountains. Past the Serpent’s Spine. It’s called the Shadowfang Ruins.”

The name hit her like a shiver.

“They say it’s where the first wolves were born,” Kael added. “Before the packs. Before laws. Before even the Council.”

Samantha’s brows furrowed. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re not just some outcast,” the quiet one said at last, voice low. “You were found when you were a baby. You don’t even know who your real family is, do you?”

“No,” she admitted, after a pause. “I don’t.”

The older man nodded. “Then maybe it’s time to find out. Shadowfang holds answers… or so the stories say.”

“And dangers,” Kael added. “The place is cursed. Haunted by spirits of ancient wolves. The old ones say only those with pure wolf blood can enter and return without going mad. Others go blind. Some vanish.”

“Why tell me if it’s suicide?” Samantha asked, her tone hard, skeptical.

“Because you deserve a choice,” Kael said. “A real one.”

For a long time, she said nothing. The wind rustled through the trees, and a hawk cried in the distance. Samantha looked past the last trees of Black Ridge, into the choking thicket of the wild.

“I’ve had my choices made for me since the day I could walk,” she whispered. “Maybe it’s time I made one for myself.”

She walked forward.

Kael moved to stop her, then hesitated. “Wait.”

Samantha turned, wary.

Kael reached into his satchel and pulled out a small cloth-wrapped bundle. “It’s not much. Dried meat. Water. A spare knife.” He handed it to her. “You’ll need it.”

She took it, silent again.

The older guard stepped forward. “And if you make it… if you find whatever’s out there—you come back with your head high, girl. Show them they were wrong.”

Her throat tightened. She managed a nod.

They didn’t say goodbye.

They just watched her go.

She stepped into the trees alone.

The forest closed in around her like a living beast, all moss-covered stone and creaking limbs. Branches clawed at her arms. The deeper she went, the less sunlight trickled through the canopy. The silence became its own presence—thick, humming, and ancient.

She walked until her legs burned. Until her breath came in sharp pants. Until the scent of pine and rot filled her nose.

Then she collapsed beside a fallen log, cradling the bundle Kael had given her.

She hadn’t cried since they dragged her from the Council chambers. Not when they stripped her of her name. Not even when Erynn screamed for her as she vanished into exile.

But now, sitting alone beneath the looming shadows of the mountains, tears spilled.

She cried for Erynn. For Ronan and Alex. For Derek, who had fought for her and lost. For the pack that raised her only to cast her out like she meant nothing.

And she cried for herself—for the girl who used to believe she belonged.

The fire of anger slowly smoldered beneath her grief. Serene’s face flashed in her mind, that wicked little smile. The lie she’d planted. The man who claimed to see Samantha poisoning the supplies—bought and paid.

She clenched her fists.

They thought she was gone.

They thought they had won.

But they didn’t know what had been awakened inside her.

The ruins. Shadowfang.

She looked to the east, where the sky darkened over the distant jagged teeth of the Serpent’s Spine.

Whatever lay in those ruins—answers, madness, the truth of her blood—she would face it.

Because the only way forward was through the very darkness they feared.

And Samantha had nothing left to lose.