Mira dreamed in blood.
It soaked the earth, black and steaming under a moon split by smoke. The air tasted of iron and ash, thick enough to choke on. She was running—small legs, too short, pounding uneven ground while screams shredded the night behind her.
"Don't look back," someone shouted.
She did anyway.
Fire climbed the trees like hungry hands. Wolves fell and some shifting mid-stride, others crushed beneath collapsing stone. She saw her grandmother at the edge of the clearing, silver hair unbound, eyes blazing with a fury that burned brighter than the flames.
"Run, Mira!"
A shadow moved behind her grandmother large, pale, and fast. A flash of white fur, a snarl, and then Mira screamed.
She woke with a violent gasp, heart slamming against her ribs, claws threatening to tear through skin that wasn't quite skin anymore. The Alpha's quarters loomed around her, dim and unfamiliar, the hearth reduced to dying embers.
She was not a child.
Her grandmother had been dead for twenty-three years.
Her hands shook as she pressed them to her face, dragging in air that refused to settle her racing pulse.
It's just a dream.
But the scent lingered like smoke, blood, something sharp and wild that didn't belong to memory alone.
The bond stirred, not gently.
Mira froze.
It wasn't the usual sound or distant tug. This was sharp—insistent. A pressure behind her eyes, a pull that felt like someone had grabbed her spine and twisted.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
"No," she whispered. "Get out."
The bond didn't listen.
Images flooded her mind—unwanted, invasive.
A different forest. A different night.
A younger Ryker stood at the edge of a battlefield, hands red to the wrist, chest heaving as bodies lay scattered around him. He looked shocked, almost sick, staring at his own hands as if he didn't recognize them.
I didn't mean to—The memory fractured.
Mira cried out, clutching her head as pain lanced through her temples. She rolled onto her side, gasping, trying to push the images away.
The bond surged again. This time, it pulled her toward him.
She was on her feet before she realized it, bare feet silent on stone as she staggered out of the outer chamber and into the main quarters. The room was dark, moonlight slicing through narrow windows.
Ryker stood near the hearth.
He wasn't asleep.
He turned the instant she crossed the threshold, golden eyes flaring. "Mira?"
Her knees buckled.
He crossed the room in two strides, catching her before she hit the floor. His arms wrapped around her automatically—strong, steady, grounding.
The contact detonated the bond.
Heat flared, chasing away the cold terror in her veins. Mira gasped, fingers clutching his tunic as her wolf surged forward, desperate and furious and aching all at once.
"Don't..." she whispered, torn between relief and panic. "Don't touch me."
Ryker froze, but he didn't let go. His grip loosened just enough to give her space while still holding her upright.
"You're shaking," he said quietly. "What did you see?"
She laughed weakly. "Isn't it obvious? I saw my pack burn. Again."
His jaw tightened.
"The bond spiked," he said. "I felt it."
"So did I," she snapped. "It dragged me here like a leash."
"That wasn't the bond's intent," Ryker said. "It reacts to distress especially shared distress."
She looked up at him sharply. "Shared?"
His gaze flicked away for a fraction of a second.
Mira felt a tremor beneath his control. Not fear but guilt.
"What did you see?" she demanded.
Ryker hesitated.
The silence stretched.
"Mira," he said carefully, "bond bleed can cause echoes. Memories cross without permission. If we push..."
"I don't care," she cut in. "What did you see?"
He exhaled slowly. "I saw you running, when you were small, terrified, and someone screaming your name."
Her throat tightened.
"And?" she pressed.
"And I saw what came after," he said, voice low. "Fire. Death. A woman standing her ground when she should have run."
Her grandmother.
Mira wrenched free of him, stepping back as if struck.
"You don't get to see that," she said fiercely. "That's mine."
Ryker didn't argue. "I know."
The bond pulsed—uneasy, almost apologetic.
Mira paced, dragging a hand through her hair. "This bond is breaking rules. It's not supposed to do that."
"It shouldn't," Ryker agreed. "Not this early."
"Unless..." She stopped. "Unless it's being pushed."
Ryker's eyes sharpened. "By whom?"
She laughed bitterly. "Take a guess."
Varek.
The name sounded between them like a struck wire.
Ryker turned away, bracing his hands on the table. "My uncle has been studying bond anomalies for years."
Mira stiffened. "Studying?"
"He calls it preparedness," Ryker said grimly. "I call it obsession."
The bond stirred at his anger, echoing it in Mira's chest.
She wrapped her arms around herself. "My nightmares started the night I crossed your border."
Ryker went still.
"And mine," he admitted quietly, "haven't stopped since the bond snapped into place."
She looked at him then—really looked.
The Alpha mask was still there, but cracks ran beneath it. Dark circles shadowed his eyes. His shoulders were rigid, as if sleep were an enemy he refused to face.
"What do you dream about?" she asked.
Ryker didn't answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was stripped bare. "The first time I killed someone."
Mira's breath caught.
"I was eighteen," he continued. "Barely blooded. A Nightshade raiding party crossed the border. The council ordered me to lead the response—prove I was ready to inherit."
She swallowed. "And?"
"And I did exactly what they trained me to do," he said. "I killed the wolf in front of me. Then I realized he was barely older than I was."
The bond flared in pain, regret, something heavy and corrosive.
"He dropped his weapon," Ryker said quietly. "I didn't stop."
Mira said nothing.
She couldn't.
The silence pressed in, thick with shared ghosts.
"Every night," Ryker continued, "I dream he stands up again. Looks at me and asks why."
Mira's chest ached.
"Do you think," she said slowly, "that's why the bond is… bleeding?"
Ryker met her gaze. "Two wolves soaked in old blood, forced together by a Goddess who doesn't explain herself."
A bitter smile tugged at her mouth. "Sounds like a curse."
"Or a reckoning," he countered.
The bond pulsed at that—sharp, attentive.
Mira sank onto the edge of the hearth, exhaustion crashing over her. "If these memories keep crossing," she said, "I won't know which ones are mine."
Ryker crouched in front of her, careful not to touch. "Then we anchor them."
"How?"
"By naming them," he said. "By telling the truth. Out loud. So the bond doesn't have to dig for it."
She studied him warily. "You want us to… talk?"
"I want us to survive," he replied.
A long pause.
She nodded once. "Fine."
She drew a shaky breath. "The night my grandmother died, I was hiding under the root of an old oak. My father told me to stay there no matter what."
Her voice wavered but didn't break.
"I smelled the Silverfang before I saw them. White fur, moon-bright and I remember thinking they looked like ghosts."
Ryker didn't interrupt.
"I never saw who struck her," Mira continued. "Just the aftermath. But my pack decided it was your Alpha. The story became law."
She looked up at him. "Was it?"
Ryker's throat worked. "No."
The word hit like a blow.
"What?" she whispered.
"My father wasn't there," he said. "He was injured days earlier. Couldn't fight."
Her heart pounded. "Then who"
"I don't know," Ryker said. "But it wasn't Silverfang."
The bond reacted violently—shock, confusion, fury spiraling through Mira's veins.
"That's impossible," she breathed. "We buried that truth with our dead."
"And we crowned it with lies," Ryker said.
The room seemed to tilt.
"Someone wanted your pack to believe we did it," Mira said slowly. "And wanted you to believe the same."
"Yes," Ryker replied. "And they succeeded."
A sound echoed faintly through the quarters a distant horn, low and resonant.
Ryker straightened. "That's the eastern watch."
Mira's blood ran cold. "That's my brother's patrol route."
Another horn joined it.
Then shouting.
The bond surged—fear spiking hard enough to make her gasp.
Ryker reached for his sword. "You stay here."
"No," she snapped, leaping to her feet. "If that's Nightshade..."
"It's a skirmish," he said. "Or a provocation."
"Or a trap," she shot back. "For both of us."
Their eyes locked.
The bond pulled tight between them, thrumming with urgency.
A guard burst through the door. "Alpha! There's been an incident at the border. One of the attackers was captured."
Ryker's jaw clenched. "Who?"
The guard hesitated. "He claims to be Nightshade. And he keeps calling for Mira."
Her heart slammed into her ribs.
"His name," Ryker demanded.
The guard swallowed. "Eron Nightshade."
Mira went cold.
Her brother.
The bond screamed.
Ryker turned to her, expression unreadable. "This changes everything."
Outside, the horns continued to howl, and in the depths of Mira's mind, an old memory shifted, rearranging itself into something far more dangerous than grief. Truth.