Chapter 5: What's Under Her Skin

The training grounds were already crowded by the time Wren arrived, every unmated wolf in the pack lined up along the edges of the sparring ring, murmuring behind cupped hands. A few of them fell quiet as she passed, exchanging glances that carried yesterday's gossip with them. Darius stood near the front beside the Beta, arms crossed, watching the ring with the patient stillness of someone who already knew exactly how this was going to go.

Kade wasn't there. Wren told herself that didn't matter, and mostly believed it.

"Pairs," the Beta called out, consulting a list in his hand. "Trial matches. Winner moves forward. Losers, back to training." His eyes skimmed the crowd and landed on Wren. "Wren, daughter of Maren. You're against Rurik."

A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd, sharp and unkind. Rurik was easily the biggest wolf in her age group, built like a wall, and had spent the better part of the last three years finding new ways to make Wren feel small during training. He grinned when he heard his name, already rolling his shoulders like the match was already won.

"This should be quick," someone muttered nearby, not quietly enough.

Wren stepped into the ring anyway. Her hands were steady. Her jaw was set. She kept her eyes on Rurik and refused to look toward the crowd, toward Darius, toward anyone who might be waiting to watch her fail.

"Try not to cry when I win," Rurik said, low, just for her.

"Try not to talk so much you forget to fight."

Rurik's grin flickered, annoyed now, and the Beta's whistle cut the air before he could answer.

He came at her fast, the way he always did, counting on his size to end things before they started. Wren had spent years learning to read that particular kind of confidence, the way bigger opponents committed too early because they'd never had to learn otherwise. She sidestepped, let his weight carry him past her, and drove her elbow into his ribs hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.

A few wolves near the front leaned forward, murmurs shifting into something sharper, more attentive.

Rurik recovered fast, snarling, and this time he didn't underestimate her. He caught her arm, twisted, and slammed her down onto the packed dirt with enough force to rattle her teeth. Pain flared bright and immediate through her shoulder. For a moment the world tilted, sound going thin and distant, the crowd's noise reduced to a dull roar somewhere far away.

Something under her skin answered the pain with heat.

It wasn't like anything she'd felt before, not the familiar warmth of her wolf simmering beneath the surface during ordinary shifts, but something sharper, older, like a door she hadn't known existed had suddenly been kicked open. Heat raced up her spine and settled behind her eyes. Her vision sharpened at the edges, colors bleeding brighter, every sound in the clearing suddenly too loud and too clear at once. Her pulse slowed and then surged, hard enough that she felt it in her teeth, and when Rurik lunged again to pin her down for good, Wren moved before she consciously decided to.

She caught his wrist mid-strike, twisted it hard, and threw him with a strength that didn't feel entirely her own.

He hit the ground six feet away with a crack that silenced the entire clearing, dust rising where he landed.

Wren stood over him, chest heaving, her own hands trembling with something that wasn't exhaustion. The crowd had gone utterly silent, dozens of faces staring at her like they were seeing her for the first time in their lives. A few wolves near the back had gone still mid-shift, half-formed, staring. Rurik groaned from the dirt, dazed, one arm bent at an angle that made a few onlookers wince.

The Beta stared at her, then at Rurik, then back at her, his mouth slightly open, the list still hanging forgotten in his hand.

Wren looked down at her own hands like they belonged to a stranger, turning them over slowly in the fading light. Whatever had moved through her a moment ago was already receding, leaving her raw and shaking and uncertain of what she'd just done.

Across the ring, Darius hadn't moved. He was watching her with an intensity that made her skin prickle, something sharp and calculating behind his grey eyes that hadn't been there before, like he'd just confirmed something he'd only suspected until now.

"Interesting," he said, quiet enough that only she seemed to hear it over the ringing in her own ears.

Before the Beta could call the next match, before Wren could even catch her breath, a long horn blast tore through the clearing from the direction of the northern border, once, twice, three times in rapid succession, the sound raw and urgent enough to raise the hair on every arm in the clearing. Every wolf in the training ring went rigid at once, heads snapping toward the sound.

"That's the warning call," someone said, voice cracking with alarm, already backing toward the weapons rack.

The Beta's face drained of color. "Border breach. Get the Alpha. Now." His voice cracked on the last word as he took off toward the lodge at a dead run, shouting names as he went.

The crowd broke into chaos, wolves scattering toward weapons racks and shifting mid-stride, fur rippling out over skin faster than Wren had ever seen a mass shift happen. Someone knocked into her shoulder rushing past, muttering an apology that never quite finished. The training grounds dissolved into a storm of movement and shouted orders, Betas barking formations, younger wolves shoving toward the armory in a tangle of limbs and panic.

Wren stood frozen at the center of it, shoulder still aching, power still humming faintly beneath her skin, and watched Darius's expression shift from calculating to something far more dangerous.

"Stay close to me," he said, already moving toward the tree line, toward the sound of the horn, toward whatever had just crossed onto pack land, his stride shifting into something faster, more predatory, entirely unlike the careful stillness he'd worn moments earlier.

Wren didn't have time to ask why he thought he had the right to tell her that. She fell into step behind him anyway, her legs moving before her mind had fully caught up.

The trees at the northern edge of the clearing exploded outward, bark and broken branches raining across the grass, and something large and snarling came tearing through the underbrush straight toward them.