🔹️THORNE
I was off my bed, on my feet before the door was slamd open.
A gamma stepped in, sweat on his brow, his terror filling the air. "Alpha—"
Another gamma burst in behind him, his skin ghostly white, his body trembling. "There is—there is—"
It was chaos before I could demand one of them to spit out what could be so urgent and terrifying that they had no words for it. A third gamma joined the fray, breathless. "Sothing was dropped at the Mist’s edge. Alpha—you have to co now."
---
The zetas were gathered by the ti I stepped outside, along with so of the deltas. One gamma walked out into the clearing toward us, his face ashen.
In his hand was a box, one corner damp—with blood, dripping crimson onto the frost-covered ground.
No one said a single word as he walked forward, step by agonizing step, his arms shaking like what he carried weighed a ton. No one closed the distance between us as I took the first step in his direction.
A tear fell from his eye.
I reached him in three strides, taking the box from his trembling hands. The scent hit before I even opened it—blood, fresh and tallic, but beneath it sothing that made my wolf surge forward with a snarl that rattled my ribs.
Vargan.
Not the scent of Allied Pack slaves. Not the pitiful, painful, broken sll of wolves used and discarded by southern masters.
This was ours. Northern born. Frost Peak blood.
My fingers tightened on the box as I lifted the lid.
An arm. Severed cleanly at the shoulder, the cut precise—surgical. Designed to keep the victim alive. To make them endure the loss. The flesh was aged but fresh, still seeping, still warm enough that it couldn’t have been removed more than hours ago.
Silver marks scarred the skin in deliberate patterns—burns inflicted thodically, over ti. Torture marks. Soone had taken their ti with this.
But it was the scent that confird what every wolf gathered here already knew. What they would have known even if this had been nothing but dried bone. Even if it had been a single scab scraped from flesh.
Vargan.
One of ours.
Umbra roared inside my head, a sound of pure rage and grief and vengeance. Shadows spilled from my back unbidden, writhing like living smoke, reaching for threats that weren’t here, for enemies I couldn’t tear apart.
Soone behind choked on a sound—half sob, half fury.
Nyx was utterly silent on my shoulder. The raven who always had sothing to say, so sardonic observation, so dark quip—silent as death.
The gammas shifted uneasily, hands going to weapons though there was no enemy to fight. The zetas stood rigid, every one of them scenting the air, recognizing what I recognized.
Family.
Pack.
Ours.
The crone erged from the fortress, moving with that eerie speed that made her seem to glide rather than walk. She took one look at the box in my hands, one breath of the scent carried on the frozen wind, and her face went cold as stone.
"Vargan," she said, her voice cutting through the shocked silence like a blade. "Born of the North. Blood of the Frost Peaks." She stepped closer, her one working eye fixed on the severed limb. "Not a slave. Not a captive from the old Silverfang pack."
"One of ours," a delta breathed, and the words rippled through the gathered wolves like poison.
"Yes." The crone’s weathered hand reached out, hovering over the arm without touching it, reading sothing in the pattern of silver burns, in the way the flesh had been treated, in the scent that spoke of identity even in death.
When she spoke again, her voice carried the weight of absolute certainty and devastating grief.
"Zeta Kael."
The na detonated like a bomb.
He hadn’t been on extended patrol, that was neither his role nor his rank.
He’d been captured.
Tortured.
Mutilated.
And they’d sent back pieces.
He had been with when the animals had heeded to Althea’s calls. He had been right by , ranting like he couldn’t help but do.
Umbra’s rage beca a physical thing, clawing up my throat, demanding release. My vision edged red. The shadows at my back grew darker, denser, reaching for sothing to destroy, sothing to eviscerate, sothing to make bleed.
"When?" My voice ca out rough, barely human. "When was this left?"
"Just before dawn," the gamma who’d carried the box answered, his voice shaking. "The sentries at the Mist’s edge found it. There was—" He swallowed hard, reaching into his coat with trembling fingers.
"There was—" He swallowed hard, reaching into his coat with trembling fingers.
"It has already started." Ivanna’s voice cut through the tension like a knife. She stepped forward from where she’d been standing among the deltas, her expression cold, controlled. "The oga. She’s already bringing misfortune."
Several heads turned toward her. The crone’s one eye narrowed.
"She has been suffering from the brand since the interrogation," the crone said sharply, her tone brooking no argunt. "In the war room. Unconscious half the ti, barely coherent the rest. There is no way she orchestrated this."
"Of course not directly," Ivanna countered, her voice asured but carrying an edge I recognized—the one she used when building a tactical argunt. "But her presence here, her existence—it’s brought the Allied Packs to our doorstep. They want her back badly enough to capture and torture one of our zetas. To send us pieces of him as a ssage. This—" she gestured to the box in my hands, "—is what happens when you harbor what belongs to them."
"She belongs to no one," the crone snapped.
"She belongs to the High Alpha through a soul-brand," Ivanna corrected coldly. "And now our wolves are paying the price for keeping her here."
The gammas and deltas shifted uneasily. I could feel it—the seed of suspicion Ivanna was planting, taking root in minds already shaken by the sight of Kael’s severed arm.
The oga brought this. The oga is the cause.
Reviews
All reviews (0)