Page 7

“Try again,” I snarled.

He blinked slowly, the pain dragging truth from his mouth. “A village… south. Coastal. Human-run. Fishing port. He… he’shiding there.”

A grin crept over Garrick’s face. I could feel my own wolf pressing at the edges of my skin, snarling beneath my flesh.

“What’s the name?” I snapped.

“Didn’t… catch it,” he muttered. “Just… told him to run. Disappear. Might not even be there anymore.”

I leaned in, my breath hot against his ruined face.

“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “I have trackers. The best. Wolves who can follow a scent through flame and ocean wind. We’ll find him. Drag him out by the spine if we must.”

His shoulders sagged. There was nothing left in him now. Not defiance. Not pride. Only pain.

I stood tall, looked him over one last time. This was the alpha who once dared to challenge me. Who called himself my equal.

What a joke.I grabbed him by the throat and lifted him to his feet. His body was nothing but blood and bones, but I wanted to see the light leave his eyes.

“This is for wasting my time.”

I crushed his throat. His neck cracked like dry wood, and he went limp, his final breath a soft rattle in the silence. I dropped him. The wolf inside me howled in triumph, clawing at the surface. I let him rise, just a little—enough to feel the heat in my blood, the madness in my grin.

Garrick didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. We had a scent to chase. And soon, we would have a body to bury.

We emerged from the darkness like revenants. The door to the dungeon slammed shut behind us, the echo ringing through the stone halls like a war drum. My men stood waiting—silent, disciplined, blood still crusted on some of their hands from the night’s work. They straightened the moment they saw me, heads bowed in deference, eyes burning with expectation.

I stopped at the top of the stairs, the cold wind rushing infrom the open corridor beyond, sharp with the scent of snow and steel. My voice was low, but it carried like thunder.

“We have a lead.”

Their attention snapped tighter.

“There is a boy. Seventeen, maybe nineteen. Blonde hair. The last son of Arlen, the only stain left on my claim.”

A ripple of growls echoed through the gathered wolves.

“He’s hiding in a coastal human village somewhere in the Crescent Moon territory. We don’t know the name—but that won’t matter. You will search every village on the coast. Every fishing town, every port, every rotting hut clinging to the rocks. You will tear them open if you must. No stone left unturned. No door left unopened.”

They nodded, fists clenching.

“Be careful,” I added. “There are still loyalists. Humans who bent the knee to Arlen or suckled from the scraps of his table. They may try to help him—smuggle him out, hide him, ferry him to foreign lands.”

My wolf surged beneath my skin, sharp and hungry. I let that violence show.

“Any human who smells of wolf is to be questioned. If they lie—break them. If they resist—bleed them. And if any of them dare hide him… Burn their homes to ash.”

The pack saluted, fists over hearts, ready to obey. Blood would flow. Screams would echo. And soon, the last of Arlen’s line would lie dead at my feet.

CHAPTER 4

Lexa

It had been almost a week since I went to the witch, and the pain had finally dulled to a whisper. It lingered in the mornings, when the cold wrapped around my spine and reminded me of what still lived beneath the runes—but by midday, it was gone. A phantom ache. Nothing more.

Snow had come during the night. Not the heavy kind that blanketed everything in silence, but a thin, fragile layer that clung to rooftops and frosted the dead grass in silver. It made the village look softer, quieter, as if it was holding its breath.

The others in town whispered over their bread and fish bones. They said the snows up north were worse this year, deeper than a man’s height in some places. There were murmurs of war between the great packs. Someone claimed the Crescent Moon alpha had fallen. Another swore the Blood Night pack was marching south like a tide of wolves.