The solstice countdown hangs over the settlement like smoke before a forest fire—visible, suffocating, warning of the inferno to come. Three days. Seventy-two hours until the council demands proof or executes judgment.
Sera meets me in the clearing before dawn, her dark hair pulled back so severely it stretches her eyes into vicious slits. She wears no tactical gear today. Just a black tank top and pants that allow for maximum velocity when she decides to break me.
"The council wants proof you're Alpha," she says, circling me with a panther's liquid grace. The morning mist clings to her skin like sweat. "Let's give them something to talk about."
"I've tried—"
"You've tried softly." Her strike comes without windup or warning—a blur of knuckles connecting with my jaw that sends me sprawling into wet dirt. The taste explodes in my mouth: copper, iron, the gritty mineral tang of soil. I spit blood onto pine needles that smell sharp as broken glass.
"Call your wolf," she commands, standing over me.
"I can't—"
"Can't is a word for the dead." Her boot connects with my ribs—not a kick, precisely, but a thrust that drives the air from my lungs in a sharp, barking cough. "Pain triggers shift in young wolves. Adrenaline unlocks the door. Maybe what you need isn't patience. Maybe you need motivation."
The beating that follows is systematic. Clinical. She doesn't waste motion or mercy. A fist to the kidney sends me to my knees, vomiting bile that burns my throat. An elbow to the temple fills my vision with swarming black stars. She works my body like a sculptor works stone, chiseling away weakness with calculated cruelty.
Through the blood in my eyes, I see Kade.
He leans against an oak, arms crossed over his broad chest, his permanent scowl etched deep as canyon walls. He doesn't intervene. Doesn't cheer. He simply watches with amber eyes that betray nothing—not approval, not pity, only the cold assessment of a man observing a test he isn't sure I can pass.
"Shift!" Sera roars, driving her knee into my diaphragm. "Your pack needs an Alpha! Your mates deserve more than a weak human playing pretend! SHIFT!"
I reach.
I reach with everything I have—clawing past the bruises, the ruptured capillaries, the screaming protest of meat and bone. I dive inward, frantic, and slam against the rusted iron door where my wolf paces, starving and rabid behind the bars Margot built. I claw at the seal, tearing my psychic fingernails against the metal, begging, screaming for the beast to rise, to save me, to rend and tear and prove Sera wrong.
Silence.
The door doesn't budge. The wolf doesn't come. I lie in the dirt, bleeding from split knuckles and a eyebrow gash that drips salt into my eye, my breath coming in wet, rattling gasps that suggest a cracked rib. No fur sprouts from my skin. No fangs descend. I am only meat—bruised, broken, stubborn meat.
Sera stands over me, barely winded, her chest rising in a slow, controlled rhythm. She looks down, her perfect features arranged in contempt that couldn't quite mask... disappointment?
"Pathetic," she says.
But then she extends her hand.
I stare at it—pale, calloused, smeared with my blood and her sweat. A trap, surely. Another test. I consider spitting at it, consider crawling away to lick my wounds in private.
Instead, I grip her wrist.
She pulls me up with rough efficiency, her fingers iron-hard on my forearm, steadying me when my legs buckle. The world tilts, gravity becoming negotiable, and I lean against her shoulder for one humiliating second before finding my own balance.
"You survived," Sera observes, her voice devoid of inflection but her eyes—her eyes hold something almost like surprise. "That's something. Most humans would have begged me to stop two rounds ago. Would have wept, offered anything, confessed to crimes they didn't commit."
"I don't beg," I slur, spitting another gobbet of blood into the dirt. My jaw throbs with each syllable.
Sera laughs. It's not her weaponized, socialite laugh. It's genuine, startled out of her by the absurdity of my stubbornness. "No," she agrees, gripping my elbow as I limp toward the settlement path. "You don't." She adjusts her grip, bearing more of my weight than I want to admit. "You might actually be worth something, little sacrifice. Even if the wolf never comes. Even without the teeth."
The words hang in the humid air between us—toxic, dangerous, almost fragile.
That night, I sit on the cabin steps, cataloging my injuries in the lantern light: three cracked ribs, a swollen eye, bruises that bloom like violent flowers across my ribs and thighs. The door creaks.
Kade.
He stands in the threshold, his massive frame blocking the moonlight, his permanent scowl firmly in place. He carries a bundle wrapped in cloth—salves, I realize, and bandages, and a canteen of water that smells faintly of herbs and magic.
He doesn't speak. He doesn't meet my eyes. He simply sets the supplies on the step beside me, nods once with military precision, and turns to leave, his boot scraping against the cabin step.
"Why do you love her?" My voice stops him—rough, bruised, unexpected.
He freezes. The muscle in his jaw ticks, a shadow of movement in the moonlight. Slowly, he turns back, his amber eyes narrowing with an expression that isn't quite hostility—assessment, maybe. Or the weariness of a man who's been asked to explain the sun.
"None of your business, cub," he rumbles, his voice like stones grinding together.
"She's cruel," I press, clutching the healing supplies to my chest. The movement sends a spike of pain through my cracked ribs, but I hold his gaze. "She treats everyone like they're glass she hasn't decided to break yet. Including you."
Kade stares at me for a long moment, his massive arms crossed, the permanent scowl deepening into something more complex—territory crossed into memory.
"She's not cruel," he says finally, the words clipped and deliberate. "She's true. Doesn't coat shit in honey just to make it go down easier. She sees what you are, and she tells you. If it hurts, that's because the truth usually does."
He turns away, dismissing me, the conversation clearly over. Then he disappears into the dark, leaving me with the scent of wintergreen and the uncomfortable realization that I might understand Sera better than I want to admit.
Toxic friendship, I think, applying the salve. But friendship nonetheless.
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