DRAVEN
I watched her shove clothes into a bag, her movents jerky—the High Gamma shook.
I was not alone in watching the scene play out like so dreadful dream. The High Gamma’s void eyes followed her movents, but she paid no mind to either of us. There was no question of mine that she answered. She only continued to pack, all the while muttering to herself.
Her eyes were blown wide, her shoulders bunched as though still bracing for sothing. As though we were still surrounded by the North Clan; as though the red mist was still behind us, caging us in.
Her eyes darted, wide and wild, as her mind had yet to catch up with what had happened. We had lost thirty slaves in one day and still we did not have Althea. Even as abysmal as our luck had been, all of that did not hold a candle to finding out the Silvermoth’s identity.
Goose pimples still rose at the thought that my Althy had been killing my Gammas to free Vargans.
Althea was nothing short of an enigma. I had thought I had her all figured out, down to the last detail of her existence. Yet, sohow, instead of anger—intrigue blossod in the face of the revelation.
And then Morgana had said sothing about her father, Cy... the na evaded even though Morgana had scread it a scant hour ago. What had the na been? I knew I had heard it; everyone had.
I gave up, knowing it would co back to . My thoughts strayed back to Althea and her control over the moths with death imbued into their wings. There was still far more to be unraveled about her, so much more to learn and see.
And explore—
The image of the Hell Hound holding her to him flared to life in my mind. I grimaced, gritting my teeth. I had to get her back. We needed to be planning how to, at the very least, lure her out again. We still had Wren. Althea would co back to the clearing for Wren.
"I am leaving," Morgana finally announced, breathless.
The ground beneath fell away. "What?" The word ca out as a harsh whisper.
But she had not even been speaking to , her eyes wholly on the High Alpha as though I weren’t even there. "I will be back by Lunareth."
Lunareth? That was in almost two months. She would leave Althea with that rotten-mouthed halfling for almost two fucking months.
"Are you out of your damn mind?" I spat. "Are you that much of a fucking coward?"
For the first ti, she turned to . Her face darkened, but I had no care for her foolish moods. "You are so fucking scared you would run, tucking your tail between your legs, while he has more ti to indoctrinate her into his madness. We need to be here, strategizing other ways to get to her."
Her eyes narrowed, her expression hardening as she glared at . "I have been feeding her Wolfsbane since the first ti she suckled."
I stopped—the words sinking in too slowly in their utter absurdity. But I was given no ti to fully register what she had said before she continued.
"I have whipped her more tis than she has drawn breath. I have burnt her more tis than she has blinked. I have made her bleed more tis than she has smiled..."
Each word fell like an anvil, one after the other, crushing my chest. Breathing grew impossible.
"...and despite it all," Morgana’s voice cracked, not with grief but with sothing worse—disbelief, "she still beca exactly what I tried to prevent."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
The High Alpha remained motionless, his expression unreadable, but his fingers drumd once against the arm of his chair. A tell. He was thinking.
I couldn’t breathe.
Wolfsbane. Since she first suckled.
That ant—
Every weakness. Every mont she’d struggled to shift. Every ti she’d collapsed. Every fragile, breakable thing about her—it had been manufactured.
"You poisoned her," I said, the words hollow. "Her entire life. You—"
"I protected this pack," Morgana snarled, whirling on . "Do you have any idea what she is? What her father was? What she could beco?"
"She’s—"
"She’s Cyrion’s daughter!" The na exploded from her lips like a curse.
Then her face went ashen, her hand flying to her mouth as though she could shove the words back in.
Too late.
The air itself seed to recoil. The temperature dropped. The shadows in the corners of the room deepened, stretched, and moved.
The High Alpha’s fingers stopped drumming.
"Morgana," he said, his voice dangerously soft. "You just spoke his na."
She was shaking now. Full-body tremors that made her look small, fragile—terrified in a way I’d never seen.
"I—" Her voice cracked. "I didn’t an—"
"His na is taboo," the High Alpha continued, each word asured and cold. "To speak it is to invite his attention. To whisper it is to court death."
Morgana’s knees buckled. She caught herself against the table, gasping. "I know. I know. But she—Althea—she’s becoming—"
"What her father was," the High Alpha finished.
Silence.
Then, quieter, almost reverent in its horror: "A creature whose na must not be known."
My mind reeled.
A creature whose na must not be known.
"His command over nature—" Morgana started, then stopped, her jaw working as though forcing the words through invisible resistance. "Animals. Plants. The very earth itself bent to his will. But not in any life-giving way."
Her face twisted with sothing like disgust.
"He could make flowers bloom only to rot them from the inside. Could call birds from the sky and crush them mid-flight. Could make the ground itself swallow his enemies whole." She shuddered. "His power over nature was destruction."
The animals.
The realization crawled up my spine like ice. All those tis creatures had flocked to Althea. Birds landing on her shoulders. Foxes curling at her feet. The way even feral dogs would go calm in her presence. The wolves...
Her father’s blood.
But hers was different. Gentler. For now.
"And his control over the body," Morgana continued, her voice dropping. "He could twist flesh like clay. Break bones with a thought. His glamours—" She stopped, shaking her head. "You could look right at him and see whatever he wanted you to see. Beauty. Horror. Nothing."
"Her blood," I said, the mory rising unbidden.
The Red Fever.
When the pack had been dying by the dozens. When every healer, every redy, every prayer had failed. I had bled Althea. And it had worked. I had always wondered why.
The fever had stopped.
"I used her blood to save the pack," I said quietly, eting Morgana’s eyes. "You knew. You knew what she was and you let —"
"I didn’t let you do anything," Morgana snapped. "You did it on your own. But yes, I knew it would work. Her blood carries his power, even if she doesn’t understand it yet."
"Even her tears can heal; they could bring plants back to life." I rembered all the secret tricks she used to show . "To save," I finished.
"For now," Morgana whispered, her eyes wide with terror. "But it won’t stay that way. It never does. His power over nature started gentle, too. He could make flowers grow. Could calm storms. Could—"
She stopped and swallowed hard.
"And then it turned. Twisted. Beca sothing that destroyed instead of nurtured. That consud instead of created."
The implications settled over the room like a shroud.
"She’s showing the sa signs," Morgana continued, her voice breaking. "The animals. The healing. The connection to the earth. It’s all him. And when it turns—when she realizes what she can really do—"
She didn’t finish, and she didn’t have to.
"Even you couldn’t cage her," Morgana said, turning to the High Alpha, desperation bleeding into her expression. "Despite everything I did, the preparations—the wolfsbane, the beatings, the breaking—she still beca the Silvermoth. She still freed hundreds of Vargans. She still—"
Her voice cracked.
"She’s waking up."
The High Alpha stood. "Then we need soone who can put her back to sleep."
"There’s no one—" I started.
"There’s one." Morgana went very still as she spoke, as though her own words scared her.
"No," he whispered. "You can’t be suggesting—"
"You know I’m right." Morgana’s gaze was cold, unflinching. "If she fully taps into her heritage—if her power turns the way his did—she won’t just be dangerous to us."
He paused, letting the weight of it settle.
"She’ll help him."
Him. The Hell Hound.
I’d been so focused on getting Althea back that I hadn’t considered what she might do once she was there.
"Seraphina’s son has wanted revenge for decades," Morgana continued. "For what was done to his mother. To his people. The Vargans were his clan before we enslaved them. Before we hunted them. Before we—"
"Before you executed his mother in front of the entire pack," the High Alpha finished, his voice bereft of its usual mirth.
She didn’t flinch. Just stared at nothing.
"With Althea by his side," Morgana said, her voice dropping to sothing grim, "he won’t just free the Vargans. He’ll obliterate the Allied Packs. Every chain will break. Every mine will collapse. Every pack that profited from their suffering will burn."
The room went silent.
"And when her power turns," he continued for her, "when it becos what her father’s was—destruction wearing nature’s face—no one will be spared."
My stomach turned.
That’s why she had frad Althea. Even after Althea had already been taken. Even when she was already in the Hell Hound’s territory. Morgana had frad her for the Vargans’ abduction and torture to ensure the Hell Hound would kill her. To destroy what could beco his greatest weapon.
But it had backfired. The mate bond had snapped, according to our intel.
And now—
"I’m going to the Fae Empire," Morgana said, her voice hollow.
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. The Fae Empire was already at war; according to reports, death ruled the land. The territory had its borders sealed; no one in and no one out.
"Morgana—" I started.
"There’s no other choice." She resud packing, her movents jerky and frantic. "The journey will be perilous. The borders are closed. The paths are cursed. Most who attempt it don’t return."
"Then don’t go," I said, hating the desperation in my own voice.
She looked at , and for the first ti, I saw sothing almost like pity in her eyes.
"I have to."
"Why?"
"Because there’s only one person who can take her back." Morgana’s hands trembled as she folded another shirt. "Only one creature powerful enough to bind what she’s becoming. To cage her. To—"
She stopped. Swallowed hard.
"To do with her as he wishes, and I will pay my price like I did before." Her face hardened. "As long as he takes her away from the Hell Hound."
She moved toward the door before turning back to . "And don’t worry about saying his na. You will forget it."
---END OF VOLU ONE---
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