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CHAPTER 8

SOPHIA

W e enter the general meeting room of the Nightshade Pack as Elder Blackwood’s voice cuts through the lodge’s great hall like a blade made of bureaucracy and barely concealed disdain.

“The Windriders have overstepped,” he says, standing tall in his pristine charcoal jacket, every silver hair in place, eyes like frost. “Not just with Nightshade. They’ve involved themselves with Ironclaw affairs.” Then, realizing Lucas and I have joined them, he points a bony finger at me and continues, “And I hear rumors you’ve been poking around in the territories of several other packs that fall under our governance as well. This is not a matter that the Windriders should involve themselves in. You are outcasts.”

Lucas doesn’t flinch. He stands beside me, a fortress of calm fury, but I can feel the storm gathering inside him. We’re not exactly touching, but I swear the heat radiating from his body could burn straight through my sweater.

I don’t bother looking at Blackwood when I speak. I’m watching Ryder instead, because he’s the only one in this room who actually understands what’s at stake.

“We didn’t interfere, and anything that affects the wolf packs along the ring of fire concerns us. We were guardians of this land long before some of our kind splintered off and founded their packs and territories,” I say calmly. “It has always been our way to help those who need it regardless of their pack affiliation. For example, Lucas and I tracked a kill—the senseless death and mutilation of a deer. We followed something we saw running away to a cabin filled with Crimson Claw symbols and a hell of a lot of blood. No bodies, just glyphs burned into the walls and evidence that something unnatural is being enhanced or created.”

“And you think it gives you the right to act as judge and executioner on another pack’s land?” Blackwood fires back.

“They didn’t execute anyone,” said Lucas in my defense. “We invited three of the Windriders to stay here as both Ryder and I believe they may know more about this than we know.” He holds up his hand to hold off the accusation that we’ve been hiding something. “I don’t think they even know what they know… any more than we do.”

I smile. “Lucas is right, and for what it’s worth, I believe this gives the Windriders and the Nightshade Pack the right to not sit on our hands while people go missing,” I shoot back, my voice sharper now. “I know Max Bennett. I fought alongside him a few months back. I gifted him with a talisman we found under a clump of wet leaves. Max knew the significance of my giving it to him; he would never have removed it. Someone left it there. Do you think that’s coincidence?”

Blackwood narrows his eyes. “There’s no proof Max is?—”

“He’s missing,” Ryder cuts in, his voice low but final. The room stills around his words. “Went off-patrol near the Ironclaw border three nights ago. Didn’t report back. His last check-in put him less than ten miles from one of the same marked trees Sophia and her people found.”

That gets everyone’s attention.

Kylie leans against the wall to my left, flipping her knife over her fingers with casual precision. She doesn’t speak, but she doesn’t need to. The barely contained energy in her stance says she’s about three seconds from daring Blackwood to draw a line in the sand.

“Is this regional now?” she asks flatly. “Or do we need more bodies before it counts as everyone’s problem?”

Ryder sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not ignoring the signs. But we’re on thin ice politically, and the other elders?—”

“We don’t have time to play nice with the elders,” I say. “Whatever’s behind the Crimson Claw is spreading. These aren’t random attacks anymore. It’s a message. A pattern.”

Lucas speaks again, and his voice is all iron. “They’re escalating. Whoever’s behind this is directing them, maybe even enhancing them. We found signs it’s being done deliberately. Not just Crimson Claw tactics—this is something else.”

Blackwood snorts. “Mutations? What’s next, vampires? Aliens? Shifters from another plane of existence?”

Lucas doesn’t blink. “Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’ve seen.”

That shuts Blackwood up for a beat. Then he straightens, brushing imaginary lint from his sleeve.

“You’ve made your position clear,” he says to Ryder. “But understand this—your beta and his… guest… are now under direct observation. One more unauthorized excursion, and I’ll make sure the council intervenes.”

With that, he turns and strides out, his entourage trailing behind him like overfed shadows.

Ryder waits until the door shuts before he turns to us, jaw set. “I agree with you. But Lucas, you’re pushing the line. And Sophia—if you get pulled into this politically, I won’t be able to shield you.”

I nod. “I didn’t come here looking for a shield.”

“No,” Ryder says, gaze flicking between us. “But maybe you should start thinking about what it means if you’re not just passing through.”

He walks off without waiting for a response.

Kylie whistles low. “Well, that was a whole pile of fun. I vote we get the hell out of this lodge before someone tries to assign us homework.”

I grab my jacket and meet her by the door. “Shadow Hollow?”

She grins. “God, yes. Let’s go see if we can’t rattle a cage or two.”

The trip to Shadow Hollow takes less than an hour, but the surrounding forest feels older than time. The trees here aren’t just tall—they loom. The air carries the sharp tang of copper and moss, and even the wind feels like it’s got secrets it doesn’t want to share.

Marjorie lives at the edge of Shadow Hollow in a charming little cottage with more wards hanging from the porch than I’ve ever seen in one place. Bones, feathers, twisted bits of silver wire—all humming with latent power. The place crackles with magic, wild and unfiltered.

“I thought I might see you again,” she says, stepping aside. “Must be serious.”

Kylie lifts an eyebrow. “Is it the constant threat of death? The undead forest? Or the fact that something in a lab coat might be birthing monsters in our backyard? Yeah. It’s serious.”

Marjorie grunts and gestures us inside.

She pours tea—no sugar, no questions—and waits until I’ve taken a sip before she speaks.

“You want answers about the mutants and about what’s being done to wolves who don’t come back whole.”

I nod. “We’ve got fragments. But we need names.”

She studies me for a long moment. Then she leans forward and says quietly, “Dr. Everett Cain.”

The name lands like a punch.

Marjorie continues, voice lower now. “He was a geneticist. Human. Brilliant. Cold. Obsessed with evolution. He visited our old vet, Arthur Whitfield, Isabella’s mentor. He believed shifters were proof of an ancient genetic anomaly. He thought he could ‘enhance’ it.”

“And the Crimson Claw?” I ask.

She gives a sharp shake of her head. “They’re a tool. Not the architect. Cain believed the future of humanity was hybrid. Controlled. He lost his license after a whistleblower leaked he was performing experiments which had no scientific value and were torturous to the animals involved. He disappeared after that. Last rumors had him heading east, toward Ash Creek.”

Kylie frowns. “Why Ash Creek?”

“There are places on this earth where the veil is thinner,” Marjorie says, eyes distant. “Where things from other realms can bleed through. Ash Creek is one of them. It always has been.

My fingers tighten on my cup. “Other realms.”

Marjorie looks at me. “What you Windriders call the Deep Below. The rest of us just pray we never see it.”

I lean forward. “So what’s Cain doing now? Opening doors?”

“No,” she says. “He’s not opening them. He’s using what came through them.”

That cold thread of dread slides down my spine again. The same feeling I had when I saw the handprint burned into the cabin wall.

“You think he’s breeding monsters?” Kylie asks.

“I think,” Marjorie says carefully, “he’s creating something that doesn’t belong in this world. And he’s not working alone.”

My pulse stutters. “Who?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she stands, walks to a cluttered shelf, and pulls down a leather-bound book older than anyone alive should own. She flips it open to a page filled with Windrider glyphs—like the ones on the cabin walls.

“This is what you’re dealing with,” she says. “Not war. Not politics. A rewriting of nature.”

The air in the room shifts. Kylie’s foot taps once, slow and thoughtful.

“Okay,” she says. “So… road trip to Ash Creek?”

I grin despite the storm in my gut. “Oh, hell yes.”

I pocket the image of the glyphs, thank Marjorie, and step back outside. The sky’s gone slate gray, and something in the wind hums like a warning.

Lucas is waiting at the lodge. He needs to hear this.

Cain’s name is more than just a lead. It’s a match dropped onto already smoldering kindling. And if we don’t figure out what kind of fire we’re dealing with soon… we may all burn.

By the time Kylie and I make it back to the lodge, dusk has swallowed the mountains. Shadows stretch long across the courtyard, and a sharp wind snakes through the pines, carrying the bite of something older than winter.

Lucas is waiting by the training ring, arms crossed, jaw tight. I can tell the second he sees me that something’s off. His eyes—those predatory eyes—narrow as he pushes off the fence and crosses to me in three purposeful strides.

“Where the hell have you been?” His voice is low and sharp, not loud—but dangerous in the way that makes my wolf perk up.

“We went to see Marjorie,” I say, brushing past him. “You said you wanted answers.”

“I said I wanted us to move together,” he bites out. “Not have you disappear off the map and leave me scrambling when Blackwood comes sniffing around again.”

“I can handle Blackwood.”

He grabs my wrist—not hard, but firm enough to stop me. “It’s not Blackwood I’m worried about. You keep acting like the Windriders are still a solo act, but you’re not. Not anymore.”

Kylie’s already halfway up the steps to the lodge, clearly deciding this is one argument she’s not getting in the middle of. Probably smart.

I meet Lucas’s gaze head-on. “Don’t pull the mate card right now.”

His jaw clenches. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

I lower my voice. “Then stop acting like I’m yours to manage.”

His eyes flick over my face. The air charged between us. He doesn’t release my wrist. Doesn’t step back. “You’re not mine to manage,” he says evenly. “But I’ll be damned if I stand here and watch you get yourself killed because you think needing backup makes you weak.”

We stand there a beat too long, breaths uneven, the air thick with everything we’re not saying.

Finally, I tug my hand free. “Marjorie gave us a name.”

Lucas’s eyes narrow. “Go on.”

“Dr. Everett Cain. Former geneticist. Obsessed with shifters. Hybridization. He’s off-grid, possibly near Ash Creek.”

Lucas straightens. “Ash Creek?” His whole body stills in that predatory way he has when he senses danger—or prey. “That’s practically on the fault line. If he’s doing experiments near there…”

“Then he’s not just playing with biology. He’s tapping into something deeper.”

Lucas mutters a curse under his breath, heading up the stairs to the lodge. “We need to bring this to Ryder. Now.”

But I hesitate, because something else happened on the way back. Something I haven’t told him.

The wind called me. Not literally—not at first. But as soon as we crossed the pass, I felt it coil in my gut like a whisper waiting to unfurl. I’d only ever felt it once before—years ago, during the Rite of Passage, when the elders placed the Windwoven tether into my spirit.

It’s how Windriders reach out across distances, across bloodlines. A sacred bond that only kin or the alpha of the Windriders can invoke… my father.

I excuse myself and step away under the guise of needing air. Once I’m alone near the edge of the training grounds, I drop to my knees and press my palms into the earth. The wind stirs immediately, circling me like it recognizes something in my pulse.

“Show me.”

The wind answers—not in words, but in memory.

I’m suddenly not in the Nightshade territory anymore. I’m back in the canyon where the elders marked my skin with storm-oil and braided the wind into my spine. A flicker of heat pulses against my chest, and I know he’s here—my father.

The air bends, and his voice slips through like smoke over stone.

“You found Cain.”

“I found his name. Marjorie confirmed he was real. And close.”

“Then you need to stop. Now.”

The words hit like a slap. I sit back on my heels, the connection humming in my ears.

“Why? You’ve always taught me to follow the truth wherever it led.”

“Not to the threshold of things better left buried.”

“We think he’s experimenting on mutants. Enhancing them, and we think they’ve come up from the Deep Below. There may be a crack, and it may still be open…”

“I know what he’s doing. And I’m telling you to stay away.”

His voice carries no anger, just finality.

But I don’t back down. “ If you know, then tell me why. Tell me why I’m supposed to abandon this when wolves are going missing. When something is bleeding into our world, possibly poisoning the earth, which could affect the birthrate.”

There’s a long pause, and then… “ Because Cain used to work for someone I thought was long dead. A human we once trusted. He betrayed us. He opened the door.”

“What door? ” I ask, heart pounding.

“The one that our kind sealed during the War of Mists. The one that should never have been open again.”

My breath catches. The War of Mists isn’t just a myth—it’s one of the oldest, most closely guarded Windrider histories. A tale of another realm bleeding into this one. Creatures that didn’t belong in sunlight or shadow. And a gate closed with blood and sacrifice.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because once you know, you can’t unknow. And if Cain finds you, he won’t kill you. He’ll use you.”

The connection begins to falter.

Then he’s gone. The wind falls silent.

I sit back, hands numb against the soil, stomach tight. My father has never ordered me to stand down before. Never invoked the Windwoven bond with that kind of force, which means he’s terrified.

But fear doesn’t change what’s happening. It doesn’t bring Max back. It doesn’t stop Cain. And it sure as hell doesn’t stop the voice in my gut telling me I was meant to find this.

I rise, brushing dirt from my knees, and make my way back toward the lodge. Lucas is standing on the porch now, talking with Ryder. His eyes find mine across the clearing, sharp and sure, and I know instantly—he’d follow me if I asked. He’d burn the world down if I said the word, which is exactly why I can’t take him with me.

This isn’t his burden. Not yet. I nod casually and slip back to my room.

I have packed my bag by the time the moon rises. Light. Essentials only. I leave a note—just two lines:

Had to follow the wind. Don’t come after me.

—S

I step outside into the stillness. The wolves are quiet tonight. Even the trees feel like they’re watching. I head for the eastern ridge, where the path curves down toward Ash Creek. My boots are silent against the rock. My breath is steady. The farther I walk, the more the wind rises.