The Escape
The fortress didn't sleep.
Even in the dead of night, its walls breathed with movement. I heard claws scrape against stone, armor clink in rhythm, low growls curling through the dark. Wolves patrolled the corridors like shadows with teeth, their steps heavy, their eyes glowing faintly in torchlight. The King's stronghold was alive, a beast of stone and iron, and I was its prisoner trapped in its ribs.
But prisoners learned to plot.
I slipped from the bed, the weight of the furs falling away like a shroud. The cold air bit at my skin, sharp enough to steal my breath. My bare feet kissed the stone floor, the chill racing up my legs, but I welcomed it. It reminded me I was awake, alive, not yet broken.
The chamber door loomed tall before me, iron-banded and heavy. I expected it to resist, to laugh in my face like every locked door in Ashwood had when I was a child sneaking from punishment. But when I pressed my palm against the latch, it clicked softly, and the door creaked open under my touch.
My chest tightened.
He hadn't locked it.
The Lycan King Ciaran Duskbane had left me unbound, unbarred, as though certain the mate bond alone was enough to hold me in place.
A humorless smile tugged at my lips. He didn't know me at all.
The corridor beyond stretched long and narrow, torches guttering against the walls. Each flame flickered like a warning, throwing jagged shadows that reached for me as I crept past. Every step echoed in the silence, but I moved the way prey learns to move swift, soft, desperate. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, yet I forced myself forward, one breath at a time.
Stone staircases wound downward. I took them two at a time, my hand brushing the wall to keep steady. Every corner threatened discovery, every sound twisted my stomach into knots. Still, no one stopped me. No one even looked.
I reached a courtyard.
The night air rushed over me, cold and sharp, carrying the scent of pine and blood. Moonlight spilled silver across the stones, bathing the walls in a pale glow. Wolves patrolled above, their silhouettes pacing along the battlements. Their eyes glimmered, watchful, but none of them looked down.
My chance.
The gates loomed ahead, taller than any I'd ever seen, chained shut with iron links as thick as my wrist. They seemed immovable, eternal. Still I had to try.
I ran to them, my breath tearing from my throat. My fingers wrapped around the links, tugging, pulling, shaking until my palms burned. The chains clattered against the stone, each sound a dagger of panic. My muscles strained, my teeth clenched.
Freedom was close enough to taste. Close enough to bleed for.
Then the bond snapped taut.
A heat ripped through me, searing from chest to spine, dragging me backward without hands, without chains. My knees buckled, my nails scraped stone, and a cry broke from my lips. The pain was too raw, too sudden, as though my very blood rebelled against my will.
And then he was there.
Ciaran stepped from the shadows, his presence striking harder than the pain. His silver eyes blazed, molten and merciless, his stride measured, his aura filling the courtyard until even the air trembled beneath it.
"Did you think I wouldn't feel it?"
His voice was thunder wrapped in silk, low and dangerous. The bond pulsed harder at his words, clawing through me, demanding submission.
My breath tore ragged from me, half fury, half agony. "You can chain me, you can claim me, but I will never stay."
He moved closer, each step deliberate, slow, like a predator savoring the inevitable. His boots struck the stone with a steady rhythm, and my heart matched it, a frantic counter-beat that betrayed me.
"You think you want freedom," he said, his tone soft, edged with steel. "But freedom, little wolf, is what will kill you."
I forced myself upright, though my legs trembled. My chin lifted high, my body shaking but unyielding. "Then let it."
His growl rumbled low, echoing through the courtyard, reverberating in my bones. In two strides, he closed the distance between us. His hand slammed against the gate beside my head, the iron groaning beneath the force. The chains rattled, a sound that made my heart stutter.
"You'd rather die," he asked, his voice soft but lethal, "than be mine?"
"Yes."
The word cracked in my throat, but it stood. It rang against the iron, against the night, sharp as any blade.
His silver eyes burned, unreadable rage, anguish, something raw and dangerous all twisted together. For a heartbeat, I thought he would crush me, shatter me, end me right there. My breath stalled, waiting.
Instead, his voice dropped lower, darker.
"Then you don't understand what hunts you."
The weight of his words pressed heavy on my chest, a warning I didn't want to hear. My lips parted to argue, but before I could speak, another sound split the night.
A howl.
Low, guttural, filled with fury.
Not his. Not any wolf inside these walls.
Ciaran's head lifted, his body going still, dangerous. His eyes narrowed toward the mountains beyond the fortress. The silver in them sharpened, predator keen, listening.
The howl came again, closer this time. A challenge, a war
ning, a promise.
The rival packs had found me.
And they were coming.