[POV: Draven]
The holding cells beneath the packhouse were carved from stone and smelled of damp earth and old iron. Torchlight threw long shadows across the walls.
Talia sat on the cell floor with her back against the wall, wrists bound in iron-threaded rope. When I stepped into the torchlight, she looked up with a smile that had no warmth in it.
"Alpha Draven. I was wondering when you'd come crawling down here."
I didn't respond. I pulled the wooden stool from the corner, set it in front of the cell bars, and sat.
"You fed Dominic our patrol schedules," I said. "Ward rotations, supply cache locations—everything Aaron found in that letter. I want to know what else you gave him."
"What makes you think there's anything else?"
"You said I had no idea what was coming. That implies knowledge beyond logistics." I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. "So tell me what's coming, Talia."
She barked a laugh, short and sharp.
"Why would I help you? You chose that half-blooded stray over your own pack. You made an outsider your mate while wolves who bled for Crimson Fang their entire lives were passed over, ignored, shoved aside so your precious Atlas could play warrior."
"Atlas earned his rank through the trials. The same trials you took, the same ones every wolf in this pack—"
"He earned nothing." Her lip curled, genuine venom darkening her voice. "He stumbled across our borders half-dead and you wrapped the whole pack around him like a blanket. The rest of us trained for years, clawed our way up through the ranks, and one broken boy with silver hair bats his eyes at the Alpha and suddenly he's untouchable."
She spat to the side. "Dominic was right about him. He's weak, Draven. He's always been."
The rage that surged through me was immediate, but I held it behind my teeth. Losing my temper was exactly what she wanted—proof that Atlas had made me soft. I wouldn't give her that.
Instead, I stood. The stool scraped back against the stone floor, and I let Sirius rise just enough to darken my voice with the full, crushing weight of Alpha command.
"Tell me what Dominic told you. Now."
The command hit her like a physical force. Her spine snapped straight, her pupils blew wide, and her jaw clenched as she fought it: muscles trembling, tendons standing out in her neck.
Within seconds her resistance shattered. The words poured out in a rush, stripped of her sneer and her bravado.
"The curse was designed by a witch Dominic contracted in the Northern Wastes—blood magic tied to the lunar cycle. It feeds on Atlas's connection to the moon, draining his silver wolf bloodline from the inside. When the eclipse comes and the moon disappears, even for those few hours, the curse will sever the bond permanently. His wolf dies. His body follows within minutes."
"Anything else?"
"Dominic has a weapon.”
“What?!”
“A blade forged in shadow. Black steel, tempered in witch-fire and bound with sigils from the same rituals that created the curse."
Her voice cracked, the command dragging the words from her like splinters pulled from flesh.
"It's designed to kill an Alpha in wolf form. The blade pierces through the shift, striking the human body beneath. He had it made specifically for you, Draven. He plans to use it when the siege pulls you into the open."
A curse designed to murder my mate. A weapon forged to murder me. Dominic hadn't come to scheme—he'd come to exterminate.
"Who else in my pack is feeding him intelligence?"
"It was only me." Her eyes were glassy, her body trembling under the command's grip. "He promised me a Beta position in the new order. When Atlas was dead and you were broken, Dominic would absorb Crimson Fang into his territory."
I stared at her—this wolf I'd trained, trusted, fought beside. The betrayal tasted like copper on the back of my tongue.
"You'll be sentenced after the war," I said. "If we survive it."
I left her in the dark and climbed the stairs two at a time.
The war council gathered within the hour. Aaron stood at the head of the map table, arms crossed, a fresh bandage wrapped around his temple. Kobe leaned against the far wall, jaw tight, favoring his uninjured side.
Theo and Piper flanked the table's eastern edge, their faces drawn with the particular exhaustion of wolves who'd fought at dawn and hadn't slept since.
Elder Axel sat apart from the others in a high-backed chair near the hearth. He was ancient: silver-haired, stooped at the shoulders, with trembling hands.
But his eyes were sharp and dark, carrying the intensity of a man who'd spent decades cataloguing truths others had forgotten.
I laid it out plainly: the curse's mechanics, the eclipse deadline, the shadow-forged blade, Dominic's endgame.
"So we're fighting a war on two fronts," Aaron said when I finished. "Damian's army at the border and a blood curse eating Atlas alive from the inside."
"Three," Kobe corrected quietly. "There's also whatever Dominic's planning with that blade once the siege forces our hand."
"Elder Axel." I turned to the old man. "Mia said you have knowledge of the ancient silver wolf rites."
Axel straightened in his chair, his trembling hands gripping the armrests.
"The Hollow Stones are a sacred site deep within the Withered Pines—territory that once belonged to the silver wolves before their bloodline was hunted to extinction three centuries ago."
His voice carried the reverent weight of someone describing hallowed ground.
"The stones are a place of amplification. The rituals performed there can sever curses at their root by reconnecting the afflicted wolf to the raw, ancestral power of their bloodline."
"Can it save Atlas?" Piper asked, her voice brittle.
"If the ritual is performed before the eclipse severs his connection to the moon entirely, yes. The ancestral power stored within the stones should burn the curse from his blood like fire through rot."
He paused.
"But the journey is not simple. The Withered Pines are three days' travel through unclaimed territory, wild lands, no pack jurisdiction, no allies. Three days in and three days back."
"That's six days minimum," Theo said, running the math aloud. "The eclipse is in seventeen days. Factor in rest, the ritual itself, complications—"
"It's tight," I agreed. "But it's the only option that doesn't end with Atlas in the ground."
Silence held the room for several heartbeats. I could feel every pair of eyes on me, measuring, waiting.
"I'll lead the quest myself. Atlas, Ava, Kobe, and me. We move fast, stay quiet, and avoid Nightmaw scouts."
I turned to Aaron. "You command Crimson Fang's defense while I'm gone. Full authority: patrol rotations, troop deployment, resource allocation. If Damian hits before we return, you hold the line until we get back."
Aaron held my gaze without flinching. "I'll hold it."
"Elder Axel will accompany us to guide the ritual," I continued. "Theo, Piper, you're Aaron's lieutenants. Reinforce the eastern perimeter with everything we have."
"When do we leave?" Kobe asked from the wall, already pushing off it, his body coiling with readiness despite his injuries.
I looked at the map spread across the table—the vast stretch of unclaimed wilderness between Crimson Fang and the Withered Pines, every mile of it uncharted and hostile.
Then I glanced at the door beyond which Atlas lay with a dying mark on his brow and a curse devouring him from within.
"Dawn. We leave at first light, and we don't stop until those stones are under our feet."