I met her stare evenly. “I thought Lucian wouldn’t make the terrain impossible for Omegas. I took a chance.”
The lie tasted bitter, but I couldn’t offer them the truth just yet.
Judy nudged Roxy’s shoulder. “Shut it. We need all the help we can get, or we’ll be dead before sunrise. Now eat?
Grudgingly, Roxy popped one into her mouth. She made a face like she’d bitten into soap but chewed anyway.
“Gods, that’s vile.”
“Then spit it out,” Judy retorted, already feeding one carefully to Talia.
Roxy swallowed hard. “Not a chance. If this keeps me alive, I’ll eat a thousand of them.”
By the time the fire dwindled to glowing embers, the fruits had worked their strange magic.
Color had crept back into Talia’s face, Finn’s teeth had stopped clattering, and Roxy-well, she still complained about the taste every chance she got, but her body was no longer shaking.
Relief eased some of the tension strangling my chest. I sat back against the stone, exhaustion pressing down like a heavy blanket.
And even through that exhaustion, I felt Alina.
A constant presence now, warm and quiet in the back of my mind.
‘Sleep, Sera,’ she whispered, soft as a lullaby. ‘I’ll be here when you wake. I’m not leaving again.’
Tears pricked my eyes, but this time they weren’t born of terror but from fierce, aching hope. I closed them, surrendering to rest.
***
When dawn came, I stirred to the brittle crackle of splitting ice. My eyes flew open to pale shafts of light spilling into the cave.
The weight in my chest lightened as I realized Alina was still there, her steady hum twining with my thoughts.
‘Good morning, skeptic, she teased.
I nearly giggled.
We packed quickly, wolfing down the last of the fruit. No one complained about the taste now.
With their bodies steadier, my teammates moved like warriors again-not Omegas on the brink of death, but wolves ready to fight.
That renewed hope carried us farther than I could have hoped for.
The cold no longer clouding our minds, clues we couldn’t decipher before seemed clearer.
Paw prints. Disturbed snow. Markings carved into stone trees like runes left behind by some ancient claw.
Step by step, the trail sharpened.
Until finally, the forest opened into a vast plain of white. At its center rose a massive formation of stone-like the bones of a mountain thrust through the snow. Jagged, looming, intimidating.
We stopped at the edge, breaths steaming.
“There,” Judy whispered, awe tinging her tone.
Roxy whistled low as her gaze followed Judy’s. “Well, guess we’ve found our Gatekeeper Boss”
Perched on the highest stone like a creature born of fire and snow was a wolf. Colossal. A coat that shimmered like gold under the pale sun.
His eyes burned, fierce and unyielding, fixed on us with predatory calm. Around his neck gleamed the talisman-fang-shaped, silver, shining.
Recognition struck me, stopping my heart.
Ashar.
Kieran’s wolf.
SERAPHINA’S POVE
If you ever need a textbook definition of irony, here’s one: last night, when I faced the bear, I had wished for Kieran’s presence.
Now, he was here. But it sure as hell wasn’t to protect me.
The moment my gaze locked on Ashar atop the jagged stone, a surge of emotions rose within me.
Not just awe-though the sheer magnitude of his presence demanded that.
Not just fear-though my pulse tripped violently at the sight of him.
It was…something else. Something raw. Elemental. Difficult to quantify.
My chest tightened as though invisible chains yanked taut. They pulled me toward him-even as they tore me apart from myself, all at the same time.
His coat shimmered like liquid sunlight caught in snow, each ripple of muscle beneath that fur announcing lethal grace.
And his eyes-gods, his eyes. They were fixed on me, pinning me in place like a moth fixed to a collector’s board.
I’d always known them to be dark, but now they shone like molten gold, piercing straight through me as though he could see every thought I dared to think.
And then, absurdly, my heart ached. Not just from the threat before me. No, this ache came from something deeper, something that reached into old scars I’d worked so hard to forget.
“Sera,” Judy said quietly, carefully. “Is that who I think it is?”
I gave the barest of nods. “Ashar,” I whispered, though my voice-and its tremor-carried loud and clear. “Alpha Kieran Blackthorne of
Nightfang pack.”
The title settled over us like a storm cloud, and the gravity of what we were facing made my knees wobble.
Behind me, my teammates shifted nervously, boots crunching against the snow. Finn’s breath came out ragged, Talia gulped audibly, and Roxy-well, she wasn’t one to hide her nerves behind silence.
“Fuck me sideways,” she muttered, squinting at Ashar, “Of all the damn Alphas they could’ve thrown at us…they sent him?” She shot me an accusing look. “Wanna tell me again that Lucian doesn’t have it out for us?”
I might have pointed out more irony that Roxy had once thought Lucian was shifting things in my favor, and now, she thought he was doing the exact opposite.
But I was too busy trying to figure out how the fuck we were going to pass this final challenge.
“Quiet,” Judy snapped, but her voice lacked its usual steel. Her hand gripped the hilt of the dagger at her belt, her knuckles white.
Ashar’s growl rolled across the plain like thunder. Deep. Resonant. A warning. The sound made the hairs on my arms rise, made my blood sing with equal parts terror and something else I didn’t have the luxury of examining right now.
‘Focus, Sera.’ Alina’s voice was steady, leaving no room for fear. “This isn’t about you. This is about survival
I forced air into my lungs. “We can’t stand here all day quaking in our boots,” I said, the words scraping past the lump in my throat. “Form up.”
Judy exhaled, reaching out with her free hand to squeeze my shoulder firmly. “Call it out, Sera.”
I shot her a grateful look.
“Judy, flank right. Roxy, flank left. Talia, Finn, take rear guard.”
They moved instantly, taking their positions with a precision that made me proud.
I strode forward, Ashar’s gaze tracking my every move.
The two talismans gleamed at his throat, silver catching in the pale sun like an unreachable star.
But we’d come this far. We would go all the way.
“On my mark,” I whispered, my gaze never leaving Ashar’s.
“Now!”
The first clash was chaos.
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