Page 31 of Traitor Wolf (Bonded by Fate Duet #1)

“Brynn!” Tyrus shouted.

I spun around.

Kaelric was in wolf form, white fur streaked with ash, herding my family away from a collapsing building. Little Sable was riding on his back like he was a pony.

Tyrus was soot-covered, wild-eyed, and holding the twins, Wren and Willa, by the hands.

Behind him came my mother, wrapped in a blanket, coughing but walking, Caro on her hip.

Mira, Tobben, Renna, Kess, Isla, and Finn walked behind.

I did a quick headcount, and when I got to eleven, I whimpered in relief.

They were safe.

“We were asleep. Kaelric woke us and got us out,” Tyrus said, dragging me into a hug so hard it knocked the breath from me.

My gaze flicked to the wolfkin, just as my little sister slid off of him.

“He saved our lives,” my mother said, coughing into her hand, her voice hoarse.

Of course he did. The man I couldn’t have was perfect for me.

“Aunt Lynn, Aunt Gracine, Uncle Gregg—” I muttered .

“All fine,” my mom said. “Your cousins, too. We just saw them. They went to help neighbors.”

Kaelric shifted then, shirtless, breath heaving, and covered in soot. He stood off to the side as I looked over the rest of my family. They were soot-smeared, shaken, but alive. All of them. Even Finn, clutching his bent stick sword.

I pulled them all in for a group hug and held them for a long moment.

When we broke apart, I looked back. The house I’d grown up in, slept in, read by candlelight in, was collapsing in on itself, taking our past with it.

I reached out to hold my mother’s hand and squeezed it tight.

Then I let go, because people were still screaming. There were others who weren’t out yet.

And Kaelric and I could help.

“You guys go to the farm fields and wait there. I have to help the others,” I told them.

“No!” Little Sable clung to my leg, but my mother gently pried her off.

“Be careful,” my mother told me, and then took one last look around our burning village and left.

I stepped closer to the wolfkin who secretly had my heart.

“Thank you,” I told Kaelric. I hoped my tone conveyed how deeply grateful I was .

He just nodded once. “I’m sorry about your home.”

It wasn’t much of a home, but now I missed it. Now it was luxurious compared to having nothing.

We didn’t speak after that.

We just worked.

For hours, we moved between buildings, pulling children from crumbling homes, guiding panicked families out of the Dregs and into the neighboring wheat fields.

The fire spread like the wind, devouring everything in its path.

Kaelric hoisted beams off collapsed doorways while I tied scraps of cloth around burns.

Someone handed me a bucket, and I formed a line as we tried to put out smaller fires to keep them from spreading.

It was no use. My arms ached, lungs burned, but I didn’t stop.

Neither did Kaelric. I’d long lost sight of Cassian, but Kaelric stood by my side the entire night, working tirelessly to save as many people as he could.

I stared at the orange and yellow flames and wondered if the fire had been started with magic or just carelessness. Or something worse . I didn’t have time to question it.

By dawn, the fires were mostly out because they had consumed every thatched roof, every crate of wood, every blanket, every hair comb. Ninety-five percent of the Dregs was ash and rubble. Hundreds of families were left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

And still no help came from Aerlyn.

The gates of the Elite city stayed shut.

No aid. No shelter. Just silence.

A venomous rage that scared me formed inside my chest. This fury was murderous and all-consuming.

The people who survived the fire, which luckily were most, huddled into the roadways and grain fields across from the Dregs just outside the Elite city.

I found Kaelric kneeling beside a young boy with blistered hands and blood on his cheeks. Kaelric wrapped a scarf around the boy’s shoulders, murmuring something too quiet to hear. I noticed healing magic leaving Kaelric and saturating the boy.

When Kaelric stood, he turned and looked at me.

For the first time in a week, I saw him, not just the wolf, not just the warrior, but the realest part of him, the part that cared for people, the alpha that risked himself for others.

My heart ached as I remembered the way we’d kissed, how natural it had felt, and then the crushing words he’d delivered after.

You’re human. I can’t be with you.

I was too poor to be with Cassian, too human to be with Kaelric. Would I die alone? Maybe. I was too tired to care about it right now.

Kaelric and I stared at each other. We were both filthy, exhausted, and covered in soot. I didn’t say anything, I just stepped forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with him as the sun came up over the cloudy remnants of my childhood.

“We have the final trial in a few hours,” I said hoarsely.

“I know.”

“We’re not ready.”

I’d been practicing all week with Cassian and not him. We had barely spoken. We weren’t a team, and this was a trial designed to take me out. I was going to die. My mother was going to lose her home and her eldest daughter all in the same day.

“No one is,” he said. “But we’ll survive it.”

He was so sure. It both annoyed me and gave me hope.

“How can you be certain?”

“Because we have to.”

A low rumble echoed through the smoke-choked air.

Wagon wheels.

Two of them.

I spun to see Cassian riding at the fore, reins in one hand, the hem of his deep blue cloak stained with soot. Behind him, two creaking carts rolled into the fields, loaded with barrels of water and crates of supplies. There was bedding, dried food, medical salve, and bandages.

Relief supplies for the Dregs.

He climbed down and landed lightly on his heels, already pulling open the first wagon.

“It’s not enough,” he said, meeting my eyes. “But it’s what I could get. Most of the other Houses refused. Called it a ‘waste of resources’.”

They would. I didn’t want to know what he had to do to get all this for us, what it would cost him. I swallowed past the lump in my throat.

He turned, gesturing toward the supplies. “Water. Some rations. Enough for a couple of nights, maybe. Until we figure something else out. I couldn’t get tents. I tried.”

I blinked hard, trying to keep it together. “You did this?”

Cassian shrugged like it meant nothing. “I wish I could do more. I wish they would open the gates.”

“Cassian,” I said, softer now. “Thank you.”

He just tipped his head, looking saddened. “Did Fiona…?”

“She’s alive,” I told him quickly. I’d seen her earlier, deeper in the wheat field with her family.

He looked relieved, then he turned, boots crunching over ash, and started handing out supplies.

I stood at the edge of the field and peered out at the Dregs, staring down at what used to be our lives.

Smoke still curled from the charred skeletons of homes, drifting like ghosts through the dawn light.

The fire had devoured everything, leaving blackened foundations, twisted metal, and ash where blankets used to be.

The small fields beyond were scorched, ruined for planting. The little land we had was gone.

Even if I survived the trials… even if I won and claimed the magic… where would we go? What would I return to? Even with magic, the Elites would never accept me. That much was clear now as I stared at the barred gates of the city.

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to hold in the ache.

The Elites had barely looked down from their towers.

I was fighting for a future that had already been burned.

I realized in that moment that the Elite didn’t need us.

Not like I thought they did. They’d find workers from villages just outside Aerlyn to travel in and do the jobs they didn’t want to do.

They didn’t need our measly wage taxes either.

They probably just raised them to try to get us to leave. We were expendable.

And yet, as I looked at the families passing water jugs, sharing scraps of bread, holding each other in silence, something inside me hardened .

The Dregs might be gone, but its people remained. We couldn’t be erased with our lands.

Let them think we were ashes. We’d rise from them anew.

‘I’m sorry, Brynn.’ Valkaryn’s heartfelt words came from where she sat at my hip. I gripped her handle, squeezing, but I had no words. She believed in change, that I could start a revolution and demand lower taxes, cleaner water. Now everything was just gone.

An hour later, the distant howl of a train’s whistle echoed through the cliffs.

I turned, squinting past the haze, as a narrow silver line cut across the tracks and came to a grinding halt on the edge of the Dregs.

These tracks were rarely used; they went out into distant farmlands, and…

Fenmyr, taking grain once a week, sometimes twice, but that was it.

The Aerlyn Railway in the city was much more widely used, with trains leaving every hour.

A man stepped down from the front car like he owned it, his black cloak whipping in the wind. Kaelric embraced him easily with a warm hug. The man was large, and now that I knew what to look for, clearly a wolfkin. But it wasn’t just him.

Behind him came more wolfkin, over three dozen by my estimate, men and women alike, strong and sharp-eyed, with packs slung across their shoulders and purpose in their strides.

I stared, stunned, as they began unloading heavy crates, supplies, bedding, rope, tents, more than I’d ever seen in one place, more than Cassian had brought—much more. This would be enough for each family to have a tent of their own, a blanket of their own. It was incredible.

Kaelric stepped over to me, and my throat tightened. “What is this?