Rhys Borderlands Novels & Stories

The whimpering ceased, replaced by a cold, hollow silence. She stood up, her joints aching. The night air of the borderlands was biting, a stark contrast to the climate-controlled luxury she had just abandoned. Behind her lay the Northern territories—the land of the King who had broken her. Ahead lay the Untamed Territories, a sprawling expanse of jagged mountains, dense, lawless forests, and ruins of a civilization that had collapsed before the first pack-bonds were ever etched into the earth.

"Rhydian. You look tired. The pack is falling apart without proper leadership. Give me the borderlands. Save yourself the trouble. You know it is the right choice." Rhydian stood tall, his voice unwavering. "The borderlands stay with Blackmoor. We talk terms. No tricks. That was the agreement." I stood beside Rhydian, scanning the tree line with heightened senses. The phantom connection flared suddenly, sharp and urgent. I felt arrows being nocked. Hidden archers drawing their bows. The trap was ready to spring. "Rhydian," I whispered urgently, my hand gripping his arm. "They are about to shoot. Left side. Three archers in the tree line. Aiming at you. Now."

“Tell me everything. Now.” She was about to reply when a voice sounded from the outside. I spun around and I was immediately sobered by the pungent stench of fear and sweat. There was a sudden inrush of a scout with a countenance. “Alpha, we’ve got trouble. Rhys is massing his troops on the northern border. It’s not a raid — it’s an army.” My heart stopped. An army. Rhys hadn’t come here to play games. With a push, I passed Elise, my thoughts racing. “Get the warriors ready. We move now.”

*Starblood Borderlands – Dawn* The smell of smoke reached Crystal before the first scream. Ryder’s patrol was supposed to be routine—a sunrise sweep along the northern ridge, just inside Starblood’s border. But as the wind shifted, the acrid tang of burning wood and fur carried blood with it. Ryder’s wolf, Aiden, went rigid inside him. Too close, Aiden snarled. They dared. Crystal didn’t wait for orders. Aelira surged forward within her, claws raking at the edges of her control. The flame inside her had been restless for days, as if it sensed the coming storm. Now it roared awake, and hungry.

I had just finished folding some baby clothes with Mer’s help, and we were talking about what names we liked when the door suddenly flew open. Rhys rushed in, and from the look on his face, I instantly knew something was wrong. His eyes were wide, and his breathing was a little fast like he had run all the way from the border. His hair was slightly messy and his shirt was damp with sweat. My heart started beating faster. “There are rogues at the border,” Rhys said quickly, looking between the two of us. “Kai sent me to tell you to stay in the room. He’s placed guards outside to make sure you’re both safe.”

The mask was a physical barrier against the past, and a psychological weapon aimed directly at Rhys’s pride. We walked on. I focused on Rhys’s true vulnerability, the cracks in his seemingly impenetrable fortress. Even with his strong central control, the borderlands were always a drain. When I had escaped two years ago, the constant, minor external harassment of his territory was already a known problem—a persistent infection that drew off resources. Rhys would have spent the last two years desperately trying to stabilize his borders, diverting patrols and supplies.

he suggested. “Exactly. But what realm? Is it some kind of other dimension? A parallel universe?” He tugged at my chain. I stumbled towards him, gritting my teeth in anger as he smirked. He rose, towering over me. “Have you ever stood upon the sea strand, Callie? Your feet touch the earth, but waves kiss your skin- you are neither on the ocean nor the land. It is a between-place, a place of change and ever-shifting sand. Footprints vanish; the tide advances, then recedes. That is the nature of the Border,” he said sagely.

Nazir and I reach the border in the woods first. I decided it would be safer not to shift, staying in our human form for now. The border is decided by the ravine, and it's almost perfect how the set of trees doesn't grow in one line, signifying this split between the territories. According to Rheyes, going further than this is dangerous; the rogues roam these woods and communicate too well with each other. There are two big rogue packs; one is in the east, where Rheyes has done his work, and one in the west.

she murmured, turning back inside. A sigh slipped past my lips as I stepped out the door, into the night. The air felt heavier. Maybe that was the price of change. Nothing around me had truly shifted, yet somehow, everything had. Lucien always had a plan. We were now at the borderlands, a stretch of no man’s land where no pack dared to claim authority. Stray wolves, rogues, and the occasional human drifted through, each chasing their own kind of survival. It was close enough to human civilization to smell their fires at night, yet far enough from werewolf territories to be forgotten.

“Theft. I know.” “Aggression,” Rhys says. “Not theft. Aggression, from a neighboring Alpha, inside contract talks. He can put that in front of the council and they’ll hear him, and you will lose the border, and then you’ll lose the crossing, and then in about eighteen months you’ll lose men.” He comes down the ladder and stops in front of me, and he isn’t joking anymore. “I’ve followed you into worse for better reasons. Tell me the reason.” The honest answer is that I don’t have one that would survive being said out loud in a council room.