The mountains slept uneasily that night, though sleep was hardly the right word for it, because the land seemed restless in its bones. The jagged peaks, capped with snow and shadow, reflected starlight in cruel silver flashes, while down in the valleys the pines whispered in a thousand voices that spoke of unease. A chill wind wound its way through the ridges and hollows, rattling needles and carrying with it a scent Eve could not name but which pressed against her skin like an omen. She had no wolf's nose, no sharpened senses, but even she felt it: a tension in the air, like the mountain itself was holding its breath.
She lay awake in the room Rowan had given her, the wooden beams creaking faintly overhead as if echoing her restlessness. Sleep would not come. Each time she closed her eyes she found herself back on that road, headlights cutting across a dark, empty stretch of asphalt, and then the sudden gleam of silver eyes in the night. The wolf stepping into her path, the shriek of brakes, the sickening twist of metal and bone—her memories blurred after that, but the image of those eyes lingered, haunting her as if burned into the inside of her skull. She tossed beneath the coarse blanket, heart hammering, torn between fear and fury, between a desire to flee and the strange magnetic pull that kept her here against all reason.
Was she insane to remain in this place? She had no answers. The thought of leaving twisted her gut with panic, though whether that was instinctive fear of the wilderness or the bond clawing at her chest, she couldn't tell. It didn't matter. Either way, she was trapped.
A sound outside her door caught her attention. Voices, low but urgent, carried easily through the thin wooden walls. She froze, straining to listen.
"They're too close," Rowan's voice said. Quiet, tense, pitched low, but unmistakable.
A deep growl answered, so low she felt it reverberate through the boards. Kaelen. "Rogues don't work together. Not like this. Who's behind it?"
"Tracks on the northern ridge. Three, maybe four. They weren't scavenging—they were scouting. Coordinated." Rowan's tone carried a mix of alarm and respect, as though the very fact unsettled him. "You know what that means."
Silence stretched, heavy and suffocating, until Kaelen's voice cut through it, sharper than a blade. "Seraphine."
Eve shivered. The name was spoken like a curse, each syllable dripping venom. Whoever Seraphine was, she wasn't some ordinary rival.
"Should we warn the others?" Rowan asked.
"Double the patrols. Keep the young and the old inside. And not a word to the human."
Eve's stomach clenched at the word, anger flaring as hot as her fear. The human. Not Eve. Not a person with a name, but a problem to be managed, a liability to be shielded from the truth. She pressed her hand against the door, biting down on the urge to throw it open and shout at them. But another part of her—the part that remembered the way Kaelen's eyes glowed when his wolf rose close to the surface—kept her rooted in silence.
She backed away, crawling onto the bed with the blanket wrapped tight around her shoulders. The chill seeped into her bones, but worse than the cold was the realization that she had stumbled into something far larger than herself. Rogues organized into groups, a rival Alpha named Seraphine, Kaelen's constant tension—it wasn't just myth and madness. It was danger. And if Kaelen wanted her ignorant, it could only mean the truth was worse than anything she could imagine.
The dawn that followed was not the golden relief she had hoped for. The mist clung thick across the valley, wrapping the lodge and the training fields in a muffled silence that seemed to dampen even the birdsong. When she stepped into the hall, the pack was already stirring, their voices clipped, their eyes darting toward the windows. Warriors sharpened blades and checked gear with grim efficiency. Mothers tugged their children away when Eve walked past, shielding them instinctively as though her mere presence carried risk. No one smiled. No one greeted her. The unease of the night had not passed with the sunrise—it had deepened.
Rowan found her outside, near the lodge's edge where the mist curled around the pine trunks like smoke. He looked weary, his hair damp with sweat, shirt clinging to his chest from training. The moment he saw her he dismissed the two younger wolves he'd been sparring with, sending them off with a nod. Their eyes flicked to her as they passed, curious and hostile all at once.
"You didn't sleep," Rowan said softly, though his voice held more statement than question.
Eve folded her arms. "Hard to sleep when people are talking about rogues prowling the border."
He stiffened, a shadow crossing his expression. For a moment his usual warmth faltered, leaving only the sharp wariness of a wolf caught off guard. "You heard."
"How could I not?" Her voice cracked sharper than she intended, but she couldn't hold it back. "These walls don't exactly keep secrets."
Rowan sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Kaelen didn't want you worrying."
"Too late for that," she snapped. "What are rogues? Why is everyone so tense? And who is Seraphine?"
Her barrage of questions left him silent for a long time. His amber eyes slid toward the forest, watching the shifting curtain of mist as though expecting something to emerge. At last he motioned for her to walk with him, leading her along the path that skirted the lodge. Their boots pressed damp earth, the air thick with resin and fog.
"Rogues are wolves without a pack," Rowan said eventually, his voice low. "Some are cast out. Others lose themselves when their bonds are severed. Alone, they're dangerous, but they're also chaotic. Predictable in their madness. But these ones—" His jaw tightened. "These ones are different. They move together. They hunt together. That doesn't happen without someone pulling the strings."
"And that someone is Seraphine?" Eve asked.
His eyes flicked to her, sharp with surprise. He hadn't expected her to know the name.
"I heard him say it," she admitted.
Rowan's expression softened slightly, but his voice dropped even further, nearly swallowed by the mist. "Seraphine is Alpha of the Hollowfang pack. Charismatic. Cunning. Cruel. She's been pressing against our borders for years, testing for weakness. And if she's gathering rogues… it means she intends to strike."
Eve's chest tightened, the weight of his words pressing down on her. "Strike? As in—war?"
"Yes," Rowan said. His tone held no hesitation. "And she won't stop at Blackridge territory. If she succeeds, every pack in these mountains will kneel or burn. She wants power above all else, and she'll tear apart anything that stands in her way."
The mist seemed to draw closer around them, each tree a sentinel listening to the truth unraveling in hushed tones. Eve stopped walking, her breath misting in the cold. "So this isn't just wolves fighting wolves. This is bigger."
Rowan's amber gaze fixed on her, steady but filled with something grim. "Bigger. And you…" He hesitated, searching her face. "You're tied to our Alpha now. Which means whether you want it or not, you're standing right in the middle of it."
Her mouth went dry. She had wanted to believe her choices still mattered, that she could walk away, go back to her life and leave this madness behind. But Rowan's words struck with brutal clarity. There was no stepping back. The bond tethered her, yes—but beyond that, circumstance had already chosen her battlefield.
That afternoon, as the mist began to burn away and sunlight broke through in pale shafts, Eve saw Kaelen on the ridge above the lodge. He stood tall, a silhouette cut sharp against the sky, his cloak snapping in the wind. His gaze was fixed on the treeline as though he could pierce the secrets hidden in its depths. Every line of him radiated tension: a predator coiled, waiting, ready. She didn't need words to know what he saw. He felt them, those rogues, circling closer. He felt the storm pressing down on them all.
She wrapped her arms around herself, standing in the damp earth, torn between fear and fury, between the bond's relentless pull and the stubborn need to hold on to her humanity. She didn't want to be claimed by him. She didn't want to belong to this brutal world of teeth and laws she didn't understand. And yet, standing there, she knew the truth with a bone-deep certainty that no denial could erase.
Whether she stayed or ran, whether she accepted or resisted, the war creeping over the borders would find her. The shadows in the forest were moving, and their hunger was not only for wolves.
She was already part of this.
And each night, the darkness pressed closer.