I smell blood before I hear the screams.
It clings to the air like smoke, thick, coppery, wrong. My boots skid on stone as I round the final corner of the school grounds, and the sight that greets me snaps something tight inside my chest.
Chaos.
Pure, unforgiving chaos.
The school—usually loud with laughter, the shrill joy of pups racing through hallways—is half in ruins. One wall is scorched black, claw marks gouged deep into the stone like something tried to tear the building apart with bare hands. The courtyard is a battlefield.
Female wolves—some trained warriors, some not—stand shoulder to shoulder with mothers who should never have had to bare their teeth like this. One woman holds a pup behind her with one arm and a bloodied knife in the other. Another has shifted halfway, claws elongated, eyes glowing with feral terror as she positions herself between two attackers and a classroom door.
And the bodies.
Too many.
Some are enemies. I know that by the scent, foreign, twisted with desperation and hunger. But others…
Friends.
Pack members.
Wolves I recognize.
A healer I trained with lies crumpled near the steps, her throat torn open. A mother slumps against the wall, eyes open and empty, her body shielding two pups who are sobbing silently, too terrified to scream.
Something inside me fractures.
Emma roars in my head.
'LET ME OUT.'
Her voice is not words—it's teeth and fury and ice-cold murder. She slams against my control, a storm caged behind bone and skin.
They touched the pups.
'They touched OUR pups.'
"I'm not a warrior," I whisper, more to myself than her. My hands are shaking. I can heal. I can lead. I can command. But fighting like this—like that—is not who I am.
Emma snarls, vicious and unrepentant.
'YOU ARE THEIR QUEEN. AND I AM THEIR EXECUTIONER.'
A scream rips through the courtyard. One of the enemy wolves lunges for a doorway where pups are huddled inside, and something inside me snaps clean in two.
I let go.
The shift is violent.
Bone stretches. Flesh burns. My scream becomes a roar that shakes the stones beneath us. White explodes outward—fur like fresh snow soaked in moonlight, massive and blinding and terrible.
Emma emerges whole.
A White Wolf—enormous, luminous, eyes glowing with silver fire edged in violent violet. The air bends around her presence. The enemy wolves falter mid-step, instinct screaming at them to run.
Emma does not give them time.
She launches.
The first wolf dies in less than a second—her jaws close around his throat, and she rips. Not tears. Rips. Blood sprays hot and wet across the stone as his head separates from his body entirely.
She doesn't slow.
She plows through another, claws opening his chest from shoulder to hip, organs spilling as he collapses screaming. She turns, snapping his spine with a single shake of her head, then barrels into two more like a force of nature.
She is not clean.
She is not merciful.
She kills with intent—to terrify, to dominate, to erase.
'DIE,' she snarls through me, through the bond, through the world itself.
Enemy wolves scatter, but Emma is faster. She pins one beneath her paws and tears his face off, literally peeling flesh and bone away until nothing but blood and screaming remains.
I feel it all.
The rage.
The satisfaction.
The cold, terrifying rightness of it.
And beneath it—me. Still me. Still watching. Still commanding.
"Now!"
My voice echoes through the mindlink, sharp and absolute.
"Evacuate the pups. Now. Warriors form a perimeter. Mothers inside—move, move!"
They obey instantly.
Mayla appears at the edge of the courtyard, already shifting direction without hesitation. Melanie is beside her, eyes blazing, voice raised as she starts herding pups inside.
"Go! Don't look back—keep moving!"
Enoch fights his way to my side, blood streaking his arms, eyes wild but focused. He moves with practiced lethality, back to Emma's flank as if he's always belonged there.
"If it ever comes down to it, choose the pack." Enoch mindlinks.
Irritated he would say such a thing, now out of all times. "If I choose the pack, It'll cost me everything. Don't ever say that again."
He nods.
Emma rips through the last cluster of attackers near the school gates, jaws crunching through bone, claws disemboweling another wolf who screams until she silences him by crushing his skull beneath her paw.
The ground is slick with blood by the time the final enemy falls.
Silence descends.
Broken only by panting. Whimpering. The distant cries of pups being rushed underground.
Emma stands in the center of the courtyard, chest heaving, fur stained red up to her shoulders. She lifts her head and howls—a low, thunderous sound that vibrates through my bones.
Mine.
The perimeter is secure.
Then—
A sound cuts through the aftermath.
A high, broken whine.
Enoch.
I turn sharply, fear spiking, but he's not wounded—not physically. He's standing rigid, one hand pressed to his chest, eyes blown wide with horror.
"No," he breathes. "No—no—"
"What?" I demand, shifting partially back so I can speak. "Enoch, talk to me."
He looks at me, and I've never seen terror like that on a warrior's face.
"I can't feel her," he says hoarsely. "Not—right. She's alive. I know she is. But she's not… she's not here."
My stomach drops.
Cam.
"She's hurt," he continues, voice breaking. "Not dying. But scared. And close. Gods, Sam—she's close."
Cold dread floods me.
I don't hesitate.
"Mayla. Melanie." My voice snaps back into command. "Stay with the pups. Hold the perimeter. Do not move from the school."
They nod instantly.
"Enoch," I say, already shifting back fully. "With me."
We run.
White and black streaking through the streets, paws pounding stone, fear driving us faster than reason. Dirge's cottage comes into view—and then emptiness.
The door hangs open.
No blood. No bodies.
Nothing.
What the fuck! Where is she?
"She's not here," Enoch snarls, pacing like a trapped animal. "She was supposed to be here."
We tear through healer triage tents next. Then another. Then another.
Nothing.
Enoch is unraveling—snarling, snapping at anyone who comes too close. I try to steady him, pressing calm through the bond, but my own fear is spiraling.
Where are you, Cam? Panicking surging through me unrelenting.
The mindlink snaps open without warning.
Her voice.
Seraphina.
I growl.
"Looking for your little friend?"
Rage detonates inside me.
"What did you do?" I snarl aloud, not caring who hears.
"Relax," she purrs. "She's alive. For now. If you want to keep it that way—come alone. No King."
My blood goes ice cold.
"You touch her and I swear—"
"Middle of nowhere," Seraphina interrupts smoothly. "Follow the coordinates I'm sending. Or don't. Your choice, Your Majesty."
As if she's amused by the fear clawing up my throat. As if my panic is entertainment. As if the blood, the terror, the timing of it all were nothing more than a joke she's letting me in on.
My stomach drops.
Because it isn't humor.
It's mockery.
And she knows exactly how much it hurts.
The link cuts.
Enoch is shaking.
"She took her," he says, voice breaking. "She took Cam."
"I know," I say quietly.
"I'm going after her." He begins to turn.
"So am I."
He turns on me, wild-eyed. "You can't—Kieran—"
"I don't care," I snap. "I am not letting her die."
We run.
Deep into the forest.
Night has fallen fully now, the moon veiled behind thick clouds. The woods are dense and ancient, trees twisting overhead like skeletal fingers, shadows pooling between roots. Every sound is wrong. Every step feels watched.
The clearing appears suddenly.
Cam lies in the center of it.
Still.
Blood mats her hair, a deep gash along her temple—but she's breathing. Alive.
Enoch collapses beside her with a sound that's half-sob, half-snarl.
"Cam—baby—gods—"
Her eyes weakly flutter open.
"Wow," she mutters weakly. "This is… not how I planned to spend my evening."
Relief crashes through me so hard my knees nearly buckle.
"Don't you dare die," I whisper fiercely. "I forbid it."
She squints at me. "Bossy," she murmurs. "Guess you really are Queen Alpha now."
I don't laugh.
Because the woods are still too quiet.
And somewhere in the dark—
Something is waiting.