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EVE

“ H eraclid?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

Dahlia shook her head, a quiet dignity replacing the tenderness in her expression. “No. Nothing like them.” She raised her chin. “We come from a pack down in the Southern Council, a pack that was sought and used for our abilities, often chained in literal and spiritual ways. Even so, we never falter when finding one another because our bond transcends all else.” She smiled through the tears that glistened in her eyes. “Eve… we are from the Crux pack. We’re a pack of female wolves with oracle powers, but our members have been scattered and hidden now, across the various Shadow Moon packs.”

The words sank in, filling a hollow inside me I hadn’t realized existed. “But… how do you know all this?”

She sighed, a bittersweet smile gracing her lips. “Because I was one of the lucky ones,” she murmured. “I was born on what used to be our pack lands, raised with our history. Most of us don’t have that luxury. And the lost ones don’t even know where they came from.” She paused, her gaze turning wistful. “There’s something in our scent… something that always binds us together, no matter where we go. If you know to look for it.”

She took a long, deep breath, inhaling as if to take all of me in, eyes closed as she savored the connection. When she opened her eyes, they shimmered with emotion.

“I knew your mother, Eve. She was our alpha.”

Questions flooded my mind all at once, jumbled and urgent. The warmth from her touch still lingered on my skin, grounding me in a way I hadn’t felt since—well, since my mother. I hadn’t let myself think about her in so long, hadn’t dared to remember her for what she really was. Kind, calm, fierce in her own way. She’d taught me how to hide, how to listen without anyone noticing, how to survive.

A wolf must always know her worth, Eve , she’d said. We may be scattered, but we are never alone .

Never alone. She’d said that so many times, but I’d always felt like I was. It was the only feeling that had made sense.

I shook myself from the thought, feeling the burn of unanswered questions rising like a tide inside me. “Wait,” I managed, shaking as I reached out to the woman before me. “How do you know my mother?”

“Your scent, Evensong, is so much like hers, and my nose never lies.”

She knows my birth name!

No one had called me Evensong since my mother left me at the Heraclid border.

As soon as the words left her mouth, her face changed. Her nostrils flared, and her gaze snapped over her shoulder, her entire body going taut with a fear so intense it chilled the air around us. Her wide, panicked eyes met mine, and whatever connection we’d forged vanished in an instant.

“I can’t stay,” she whispered quickly.

“Wait, please, don’t leave me,” I begged, the words spilling out before I could stop them. I reached out instinctively, desperate to grab hold of whatever small link we’d managed to form. “I need to know?—”

“No!” she hissed, her voice suddenly fierce. “I can’t stay. If they find me here…” She shook her head, panic flaring in her expression.

My heart clenched as I saw her fear, as real as my own heartbeat. “Who’s after you?”

“The Musca pack. I’m up for auction next week, and I know who the bidders are. I’ll be damned if I let any of them lay a finger on me.”

“Please,” I whispered, desperation leaking through every syllable. “I don’t know where to start. I need answers. I can’t go back to them.”

Her expression softened, but she was resolute. “I’m sorry, Eve,” she said, with enough anguish in her voice that I knew she meant it. “I hope our paths will cross again.”

Dahlia’s every muscle tensed, like a wolf ready to bolt. When she spoke, I could tell every word was the truth.

“We’re scattered, Evensong. Most of us live across the Shadow Moon packs, hidden and ignored, forgotten by those who don’t know what we are.” She glanced back over her shoulder, her expression hardening. “But the Musca pack—they know. They’ve always known. I’m… extra valuable to them because…” Her voice faltered, but her resolve was clear. “Because I’m a virgin. They think they can sell me to t he highest bidder, refill their coffers with a Crux-born oracle as their prize.”

Anger rose in my chest, my fists clenching as I tried to hold it back. “They can’t do that. You’re not?—”

“Not property?” Her laugh was hollow. “That’s exactly what I am to them. Musca was nearly wiped out in the last Shadow Moon skirmish, and their alpha isn’t exactly careful with his spending. He thinks he’s found his goldmine in me.”

For all my years feeling trapped by Grayson and Damian, I knew there were others facing similar suffering. And here was Dahlia, standing before me, bearing that truth like a weight she’d grown used to.

She took a step back, her eyes tinged with a sadness I recognized. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this,” she murmured. “But I wanted you to know. In case… well, in case you can stay free.”

“I’ll find you again,” I promised, without knowing how that could even be possible. “One day. I’ll find you.”

“I hope so, Evensong,” she said.

She lifted her hand, letting a faint surge of warmth pulse between us. It was a connection unlike any I’d felt before—strong, sure, and grounding. Dahlia was sending me a signal, a link that reached somewhere deep in me, like a beacon I hadn’t known I carried.

She pulled her hand back, the bond still humming faintly in my chest. “That’s a pack bond,” she explained. “It’ll guide you, remind you where you come from. We Crux are empaths—if you can harness it, it can be your anchor, your tether. You’re never as alone as you think.”

Without another word, she stepped forward, her warm breath grazing my forehead before she placed a soft kiss there, like a blessing.

“Goodbye, Evensong.”

Dahlia sniffed the air, then shifted, her small wolf form nimble and swift. She shot me one last look, a farewell as bittersweet as any I’d ever seen.

Her form melted into the shadows as if she were part of the night itself. And before I could utter another word, she was gone, leaving only the faintest trace of her scent lingering in the air.

I have a pack.

Not the Heraclids, who’d taken me in only to use me. Not even the far-away idea of the wolf of my visions, who’d briefly made me dream of freedom. But a true pack, my own, woven together by a bond I had just experienced.

Crux. Lost and scattered, yes, but still bound to each other, the way she’d shown me. Dahlia’s bond, the warmth of it, felt as tangible as my own bones, and I’d found a connectedness I hadn’t felt since my mother left.

My mother’s words took on new meaning now, her promises that I would never truly be alone.

And my mother had been alpha. That explained so much and nothing at all, leaving answers half-formed and questions—so many questions—swirling in my mind.

A memory surfaced, unbidden, hazy like the edge of a dream. I was very young, no more than three or four, blinking awake to find my mother standing outside our small house, surrounded by wolves in a perfect ring. She was in human form, arms lifted toward the sky, speaking words I couldn’t hear as the wolves stood, still as statues, the air thick with something I didn’t yet understand. Her eyes gleamed with an intensity I’d never seen, her focus trained somewhere far beyond us, as though she were calling out to something just out of reach.

I was pulled back into my body, back into this back alley in Seattle, where a smell hit me. Stale and earthy. I spun around, and there was the old woman from the café, her face shadowed and carved with lines that shifted in the dim light.

She looked me over, a little too amused, as if she’d been waiting for this. “Well, well,” she murmured, more to herself than to me, “the little Crux wolf with secrets of her own.”

I stiffened, instinct telling me to run, but I was pinned in place by that unsettling blend of wisdom and cunning, too much like a predator sizing up a meal.

She knew Crux.

“What do you want?” I asked, willing my voice to stay steady.

The old woman laughed, a raspy sound that made my skin crawl. “What I want is of no concern to you, little dove. It’s what you owe the world that matters. Or should I say… what you owe Orion. Especially after what their alpha did for you just now.”

She rolled heavy golden rings around her fingers.

“With all the time you’ve spent in Heraclid pack, I’d guess their single-minded alpha has informed you of his little tiff with the Orions. A tiff that goes back generations, from riches to poverty to power again, hmmm? You’ve been playing both sides of the coin.” She tsked with her tongue.

Grayson had tried to compel me to have a vision about the death of Orion, but I’d never uttered a curse. Even if I had, it wouldn’t have had any power. The visions came and then we did with them what we wanted.

And my visions had shown me a pack—small, struggling, thinning by the year. Shadows that stretched out over a clearing, a line of wolves fading into the fog. But there’d always been one who stood out, strong and unyielding. A lone figure, hunting through the fog, watching over those wolves with relentless, almost painful dedication.

Logan.

That pull I’d felt toward him from the moment I’d seen him in that place between dream and reality.

And he’d killed Damian. For me.

The slow demise I’d witnessed in those visions had been real, not just images plucked from thin air. Grayson and Damian had been slowly choking the Orion pack, and I’d unknowingly been part of it, standing on the edge of every vision, bearing witness to Orion’s suffering without fully understanding.

I swallowed, my mind racing as the implications began to solidify.

He deserves to know.

Logan saved me, not knowing what I represented or the danger I might bring him. The old woman was right, twisted as it felt to agree, and even if it wasn’t me who spoke a final deathly curse, I owed him this truth.

The old woman’s eyes glittered, as though she could see each piece falling into place in my mind. Her mouth contorted into an ugly smile. “Finally, the girl catches on.”

I couldn’t leave Logan behind. Not without facing what the Shadow Moon Goddess had drawn me toward. My freedom, my escape… it wasn’t just for me. I was bound to him in some way I was only beginning to understand.

A gift given; a price demanded. Freedom came with strings attached.

And something inside me—my wolf, maybe—was relieved. Relieved to have a reason to seek him out.

“As for the Heraclids…” The woman sauntered closer to me with a disquieting stare, as if she’d seen right through my thoughts. I took a deep breath, steeling myself. I could tell she wasn’t the kind to share information without demanding something in return. “We know Alpha Grayson is going to be awfully torn up about the loss of his legacy. Even if Damian was an arrogant asshole who deserved what he got. That doesn’t change the fact?—”

“I appreciate your insights,” I said, edging along the wall. “I have to go?—”

“You think it’s that simple?” she sneered and lurched closer, the amusement falling away to reveal something cruel. I recoiled; her breath smelled like decay. “That you can waltz back to Logan, tell him what you know, and it will all be right? You may have chosen a side, girl, but that doesn’t absolve you of your sins.”

I growled, feeling my wolf stir with anger that was beginning to boil in my veins. Righteous anger, on Logan’s behalf. “I need to go.”

“I don’t think so.”

Her hand shot out. She moved faster than I could react, the glint of heavy rings catching the light as her fist connected with my face. The ground tilted away as I fell into darkness.