Dawn bleeds gray and sickly over the settlement, casting everything in the color of old bruises. I’m sitting on the cabin steps, counting my breaths, when the scent of jasmine and gun oil hits me—Sera’s perfume mixed with the cold iron she carries everywhere.
"You look like death," she observes, settling beside me on the step without asking permission. She’s dressed for travel—tactical boots laced tight, a coat that swallows her frame, her dark hair pulled back so severely it stretches her eyes. But there’s something different about her posture. Less coiled spring. More... settled.
"I feel like death," I admit. My voice sounds like gravel in a blender. I didn’t sleep after the council—just sat up watching the bonds in my chest pulse, feeling the countdown like a noose tightening one notch per hour. "Death that’s been chewed up and spit out."
Sera nods, accepting this without pity. She pulls a flask from her coat, unscrews the cap, offers it. The whiskey burns going down, lighting a trail of false warmth to my stomach.
"The council is full of old fools clinging to tradition," she says, staring out at the mist-shrouded training grounds. "Tradition that says a leader must have fangs. Tradition that says power must look a certain way." She takes the flask back, drinks, her throat working. "But tradition won't change in two weeks. And Grimclaw isn’t going to grant you an extension out of the goodness of his heart."
"I know." I wrap my arms around my knees, feeling the cracked ribs protest. "I just don’t know what else to do. I’ve tried reaching the wolf until I’ve bled from my ears. I’ve tried pain. I’ve tried meditation. I’ve fucked my mates until I can’t walk straight, hoping the bond would break the seal. Nothing works."
Sera is quiet for a long moment. The silence stretches between us, filled with the sounds of the settlement waking—metal striking metal from the forge, the distant howl of a wolf announcing territory, the wind slicing through the pines.
"There’s a place," she says finally, her voice lower than usual. "In the mountains. Old magic, older than the settlements, older than the treaty. Wolves used to go there for rituals before we built walls and started pretending we were civilized."
Hope sparks in my chest—small, treacherous, fragile. "What kind of place?"
"A cave. A wound in the mountain that never heals. They say the earth there remembers what wolves forget—that transformation isn’t about flesh, it’s about surrender." She meets my eyes, and for once there’s no mockery in her dark gaze. "If anything can break a seal on your wolf, that place might. It’s where our kind used to go when the animal wouldn’t come. When the human refused to let go."
"Why haven’t you mentioned this before?"
Sera’s jaw tightens. She looks away, toward the tree line where the mountains rise like broken teeth against the winter sky. "Because it’s dangerous. Isolated. The journey takes a full day through territory that doesn’t belong to any pack—hunter territory, feral wolves, things in the deep forest that don’t recognize the treaty. And the mountain itself..." She pauses, selecting words with unusual care. "It doesn’t welcome everyone who climbs it. Some who go seeking transformation find only death. Or madness. The cave shows you what you’re made of, and not everyone likes what they see."
The warning hangs in the cold air. I think of Margot’s seal, of the rabid wolf pacing behind iron bars in my psyche. I think of the council’s verdict—two weeks until execution for me and my five.
"I’ll take you," Sera says abruptly. "Just us—no mates hovering, no pack politics clouding the air. Sometimes a wolf needs to face challenges alone. No audience, no safety net."
I study her profile—the perfect bones, the scar cutting through her left eyebrow that she’s never explained. Every instinct she’s beaten into me over months of training screams that this is risky. Leaving the settlement. Traveling alone with someone who’s hurt me systematically, methodically, who owes me nothing and has every reason to let me fail.
But Sera has also been the only one who hasn’t treated me like glass. She didn’t coddle me when I failed to shift. She didn’t offer empty comfort when the council pronounced my death sentence. She simply... showed up. Keeps showing up.
The toxic friendship has become real somewhere along the bruises and the blood and the mornings after.
"When?" I ask.
"Tomorrow. Early. Before dawn breaks. Tell your mates you’re doing advanced survival training—they’ll worry less than if they know you’re chasing pagan magic into unmapped territory." She stands, brushing dirt from her coat. "Pack light. Bring the warmest clothes you have. The mountain doesn’t forgive hypothermia."
That night, the lodge feels too small, the air too thick, crowded with everything I’m not saying. The fire spits and hisses in the hearth, casting writhing shadows across the rough-hewn walls that seem to lean inward, listening. The smell of woodsmoke and pine resin hangs heavy, mixing with the distinct musks of five restless wolves—fur and testosterone and the sharp, metallic scent of fear they’re trying to mask.
I stand before the fire, watching the five of them arrange themselves in their usual patterns, my skin prickling with the awareness of their gazes. Rhett sits by the hearth, his massive frame absorbing the heat until his scarred skin seems to glow with stored warmth, the firelight dancing across the puckered tissue of his throat. Theron paces the perimeter, his boots scuffing against the floorboards in a restless rhythm that scratches at my nerves—tap, scuff, tap—his golden hair catching the light like a halo of knives. Jarek sits hunched over texts at the table, the rustle of turning pages too loud in the silence, his pen scratching against paper with the sound of insects gnawing bone. Hrollok sulks in the farthest corner, swallowed by shadow except for the burning green of his eyes and the orange cherry of whatever he’s smoking, the bitter tobacco drifting across the room to coat my tongue with ash.
Grogan stands apart from them all, watching me with eyes that see too much, his silver hair luminous in the dim light, his shoulders taut with the weight of unspoken refusal.
"I’m training with Sera away from the settlement," I say, my voice sounding thin against the crackle of the fire. I keep my hands steady by clenching them at my sides, feeling my nails bite crescent moons into my palms. "Advanced work. Remote location. I’ll be gone two, maybe three days."
Grogan’s head snaps up. The air shifts, tightening around us like a drawn bowstring. "Now? With the deadline—"
"Especially now," I interrupt, crossing to him on feet that feel too loud against the wooden planks. I cup his face in my hands, the stubble rough against my palms, his skin fever-warm from the fire. He smells of old books and cedar smoke and the particular ozone scent of his worry. "Two weeks to prove myself, Grogan. I need to try everything. Let me do this."
Hrollok’s jealousy flares through the bond—a sharp, green lance that makes my ribs ache. He surges from the shadows, the smoke trailing behind him like a shroud, his boots heavy on the floor. "You’re going alone with her? The she-bitch who’s been beating you bloody for months?" His voice is jagged glass, scraping against my eardrums. He grabs my arm, his fingers hot and tight, spinning me to face him. "You smell like fear whenever she’s near, Abby. I can taste it through the bond. And you want to walk into the wilderness with her?"
I wrench my arm free, feeling the heat of his grip linger on my skin. "She’s teaching me," I say, my own voice rising to match his ferocity. The bonds in my chest flare—five points of light burning hotter, responding to the aggression in the air. "And yes. Alone. No audience. No safety net."
"No us," Rhett rumbles from the hearth, the vibration of his damaged voice traveling through the floorboards and up through my bare feet. He stands, his bulk blocking the firelight, casting me in sudden shadow. He moves closer, his heat radiating against my back, his hand heavy and calloused on my shoulder. The scar tissue of his palm snags slightly on my shirt. "We could come. Guard the perimeter. Let you train in safety—"
I turn, pressing my forehead against his broad chest, smelling pine and safety and the coming storm in his scent. His heart hammers against my cheek, a frantic drumbeat. "I need to do this alone," I insist, my voice muffled against his sternum. I pull back to look at him, at all of them, their faces painted in firelight and fear. "Trust me. Please."
They argue. Theron’s voice rises, honey over gravel, listing tactical vulnerabilities—exposure to hunters, feral territories, the lack of medical support. I feel his hands on my waist, urgent and proprietary, his thumbs digging into my hip bones as if he can anchor me through touch alone. Jarek’s tone stays clinical, but his pen snaps in his fingers, ink bleeding across his notes like a wound as he calculates survival probabilities that spiral downward. The scent of his anxiety cuts through his usual icy demeanor—sharp and acidic.
Hrollok paces now, sharing the floor with Theron, their shoulders brushing in the confined space, aggression sparking between them like static electricity that raises the hair on my arms. He stops only when I reach out, my hand finding his chest, feeling the rabid thunder of his heart beneath my palm.
They extract promises from me, their voices overlapping in a cacophony of concern. Check in through the bonds every six hours—I feel the pressure of their attention squeezing my chest. Return immediately if there’s danger—their hands on my arms, my shoulders, my face, mapping me like they’re memorizing the terrain. Jarek forces a satellite phone into my pack, the weight of it heavy and cold and insufficient against his worry.
But eventually, reluctantly, the tension bleeds from their shoulders, their touches softening from desperate to resigned.
I pack before dawn—thermal layers that smell of cedar chests, protein bars wrapped in waxy paper, the knife Sera gave me that feels like an extension of my own bone when I grip it. I stand in the doorway of the lodge, my hand on the rough wood frame, looking back at them arranged in the firelight—my constellation, my anchor, my heart divided into five beating pieces. The last embers cast long shadows that reach for me like grasping fingers.
"I’ll be back," I say, and my voice sounds like a stranger’s in the thick air.
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