I never thought I'd come back here. Not alive, anyway."
The forest hadn't changed. Same wet earth, same pine-soaked air, same chill that curled under your skin like teeth. I stood at the edge of the Silvercrest border, one boot sinking into the mud, my fingers clenching the strap of my duffel bag like it might keep me from bolting.
It wouldn't.
Behind me, the town car that dropped me off was already backing away, its headlights swallowed by the trees. I was alone now. Just like they'd always wanted me.
The black dress they made me wear clung in the wrong places — too tight at the hips, too bare at the throat. I'd forgotten how wolves dressed for grief. Like they were going to a nightclub where someone might get eaten.
The guards at the border stared. One of them wrinkled his nose. My scent wasn't familiar anymore. Human deodorant. Motel soap. City air. All wrong. Not pack.
I didn't bother explaining. They let me through.
The walk to the clearing was worse than I remembered. Trees leaned in like they recognized me. I passed the tree where I'd broken my arm at six, falling from a branch I wasn't supposed to climb. The scar on my shoulder itched like memory. I ignored it. I kept walking.
I told myself I wasn't nervous. That I wasn't shaking. That I didn't still smell smoke on the wind.
But then I saw the pyre.
A simple one. Logs stacked in a square, body wrapped in ceremonial furs, set atop kindling soaked in oil. The Silvercrest way.
My father — Alpha Ronan Merin.
Dead.
I hadn't seen him since I was twelve. He hadn't looked at me during the banishment, hadn't flinched when the council branded my shoulder and cast me out. I'd bled in the dirt, and he'd stood silent, like I was already dead.
Now he was.
And I wasn't sure if I felt anything at all.
The rest of the pack clustered like shadows. Black clothes, sharp teeth, cold eyes. I caught flashes of old faces — boys who used to tease me, girls who used to laugh when I tripped in training. One of them, a woman now, looked at me with something like pity. I looked away.
A low murmur moved through the crowd as I stepped closer to the fire.
"She came back…"
"Why would she show her face here?"
"Maybe she thinks she's still one of us."
I didn't.
I wasn't.
The pack parted like a wound when I stepped closer.
No one touched me. No one spoke my name.
Even the wind held its breath.
I stood before the pyre, staring at the wrapped body. They hadn't let me see him. Closed casket. Burned that way. They said it was tradition. I knew it was because of what was left — or maybe what wasn't.
I waited to feel something. Anger. Sadness. Rage. A fist of grief, like the stories said.
But all I felt was… tired. Like a chapter had closed long ago, and this was just someone writing "The End" in someone else's handwriting.
Behind me, a voice broke through the silence.
"You actually came."
My pulse jerked. I turned.
Selene.
Older, taller, still with that same half-smile that never told the truth. Her silver hair was tied back now — sleek, severe. Beta rank was written all over her body: the way she stood, the way the others glanced at her for cues.
"I didn't expect a parade," I said, my voice flat.
She tilted her head. "Still as dramatic as ever."
"And you still pretend you're not."
For a second, we just looked at each other. Ten years stretched between us like ice. I didn't know what she'd become. I didn't even know what she'd believed, back when the council marked me a danger. A traitor. An embarrassment to the Alpha line.
Selene's mouth tightened, like she wanted to say something, but didn't.
Instead, she glanced at the pyre. "They say it was a rogue attack. But no one saw it."
My fingers twitched. "Is that the official story?"
"It's the only one you'll get. For now."
I followed her gaze to the pack's inner circle — the Elders. Stone-faced and silent. My father's old advisor, Garin, stood with his hands clasped behind his back like this was just another council session. His eyes slid past me like I wasn't even a shadow.
"I'm not staying," I said.
"I know."
But her voice had that tone. The one she used when I was little and hiding bruises. The one that said I wish you would.
I opened my mouth to say something — maybe to ask why she hadn't written, or fought harder, or lied for me the way friends are supposed to — but the wind shifted.
And everything inside me went still.
It was his scent. I didn't know it yet — not consciously — but my wolf did. She went rigid, her breath caught inside my lungs. Cedar smoke. Cold iron. Heat wrapped in winter.
Alpha.
The bond hadn't snapped yet, but the wire had started to hum.
Selene noticed. Her expression flickered — surprise, then something close to alarm.
I turned slowly.
He walked into the clearing like he owned it. Because he did.
Luca Vale.
Tall. Dark. Carved like a statue of war. His jaw was set in iron, his black shirt rolled at the sleeves, veins tracing his forearms like roads no one came back from. His eyes swept the crowd — sharp, impassive, disinterested — until they landed on me.
And stayed.
For a moment, he didn't react.
Then something shifted.
Not in him.
In me.
The air pulsed. My bones locked. The forest leaned closer. Everything—every whisper, every face, every breath—faded.
Fated.
My wolf rose inside me like a scream.
No. No, no, no.
Not him.
Not Luca Vale, the boy who watched me burn and did nothing.
Not the Alpha who rose after my father's fall.
Not the man who looked at me now like he saw a ghost wrapped in lightning.
Selene's hand brushed my arm. "Cerys—"
But I was already moving. I didn't know where.
Just away.
Anywhere.