The pit was a slaughterhouse of shadow and fire.
Elysia tore through the Outsider wolves, her claws painting the mud red. Each strike came faster, harder, but every move burned with the wolfsbane coursing through her veins. Smoke stung her lungs, her body screaming for rest she couldn't give.
Behind her, Dimitri staggered. His blade slipped from his hand, clattering against the pit wall. The green poison spreading from his wound was already turning his skin gray.
"Father!" Cathal cried, clinging to his arm.
"Get him out!" Dimitri rasped at Elysia, forcing the words through clenched teeth. "Take my son—"
"You're not dying here," she growled, stepping in front of him as another Outsider wolf lunged. Her claws split its chest, hot blood spraying across her fur.
From the rim above, Kieran's voice thundered: "You see? The Alpha bleeds. The Alpha falls!"
A chorus of Shadowclaw wolves answered—half howls of loyalty, half howls of confusion. The pack itself was breaking. Warriors on the rim froze, torn between Dimitri's authority and Kieran's treachery. The Highland night rang with division.
Elysia whipped her head up, snarling. "He is *your Alpha!*" Her voice cracked through the chaos, deepened by the growl of the Ashen Wolf. For a heartbeat, some of the hesitant wolves flinched—shamed. But Kieran raised his torch higher, his sneer sharp as a blade.
"You'd follow a poisoned man?" he spat. "Or a rogue beast who should've stayed buried?" His gaze locked on Elysia. "She's no savior. She's the reason we're hunted."
The accusation landed heavy. She saw it in their eyes—wolves who wanted to believe, but fear twisted them.
Dimitri dropped to one knee, clutching his side, his body failing him. "Kieran…" His voice was weak, but it carried. "You betray…everything."
Kieran didn't flinch. "I save the pack."
And then he gave the order: "Kill them."
The world lurched. Shadowclaw warriors leapt from the rim, but not at the Outsider wolves. At Elysia. At Dimitri.
Cathal screamed, throwing himself against Elysia's leg as she braced for impact. Her claws tore through the first warrior, her body moving on instinct—but each strike cut deeper into her heart. She wasn't fighting Outsiders now. She was fighting Shadowclaw. Wolves she had once stood beside. Wolves who once might have called her Luna.
Dimitri tried to rise, but his knees buckled. A warrior's blade came down toward his exposed back.
"No!" Elysia roared, lunging. Her body shielded him, claws sparking against steel. The strike cut her across the flank instead of him, pain flaring white-hot.
She shoved the attacker aside, blood dripping from her wound. Dimitri caught her arm, his grip weak but insistent. His pale eyes locked on hers.
"You can't save me," he said, voice hoarse but sure. "Save him." His gaze flicked to Cathal, the boy trembling behind them, moonstone still clutched in his fist.
Elysia shook her head violently. "I won't—"
"*Promise me!*" Dimitri barked, the last Alpha's command he could give.
Her chest constricted. Memories pressed like a weight—of oaths sworn, of mates lost, of the day she walked away from everything. She had promised never again. And yet here she was, standing at the edge of that same vow.
A shadow fell across them. The collector stood at the rim, blood dripping from his torn arm, his grin sharp despite the wound she'd left.
"Enough stalling," he said smoothly. "The boy comes with me."
Kieran stepped into view beside him, torch burning like a crown. "You heard him. Hand Cathal over—or watch your Alpha die."
The pack wavered. Wolves snarled, confused, torn. Dimitri's strength gave out, his body collapsing fully into the mud. His breath rattled, shallow, poisoned.
Elysia felt Cathal's small hands clutch at her fur, felt his heartbeat hammering against her ribs. She knew then there was no choice left. Dimitri was finished. The pack was crumbling.
The Ashen Wolf rose inside her, wild and unyielding. She bared her fangs, golden eyes blazing at Kieran and the collector both.
"You'll have to tear him from my corpse," she snarled. "And I promise—you'll choke on my blood before you taste his."
For the first time, the collector's smile flickered. But Kieran only sneered, his voice ringing out over the clearing:
"Then tonight, Shadowclaw buries its Alpha… and its ghost."
He signaled. Outsider wolves surged forward.
Dimitri's hand slipped from hers, falling lifeless to the mud.
The Alpha had fallen.
Elysia roared, her grief and fury merging into one terrible sound that shook the pit walls. She pulled Cathal behind her as the tide closed in, ready to carve her last stand.