Chapter 2 Ghost
Ghost (Rhea) POV
The forest was so quiet I could hear my heartbeat through the snow.
Moonlight turned the trees into glass spears. Somewhere below, a slave convoy groaned its way through the Wildlands, wolves were hauling cages full of people toward the labor pits.
My mission was simple....cut the line, free who I could, and vanish before the Alpha Guard arrived.
Easy. Which was rebellion code for half of us die before breakfast.
Static buzzed in my ear. “Ghost, you still breathing?”
Maris. Always nervous. Always right to be.
“Define breathing,” I whispered. My breath fogged the inside of my mask.
She snorted. “You’re hilarious. Remind me to laugh at your funeral.”
“Put it on the calendar. Right after overthrowing the world order.”
“Copy that. Two crawlers, six guards, three cages. You’re up.”
I adjusted the scope on my rifle, aiming through the frost. The convoy crawled along the frozen trail, it's chains creaking, with slaves shivering under thin rags.
Each collar glowed a faint blue with runic power, bound to pain. One word from a wolf handler and every human in those cages would drop screaming.
Progress, they called it.
I slid down the slope, my boots silent on the crusted snow. My body knew how to move without noise, and without thought. That was what survival did, it trained you until you weren’t a person anymore, just momentum.
“Eyes on me, Mar,” I murmured. “Let’s make history.”
“Just don’t make a mess. Wolves can smell stupid.”
“Lucky for us, I bathed in competence.”
Her laugh was a crackle of warmth in the cold. “You’re a menace.”
I grinned behind the mask. “That’s why you love me.”
The first guard rounded the crawler, his breath steaming and his claws flexing. His armor gleamed silver under the moon, ornate and ceremonial, because wolves loved a good show.
I threw a pulse blade. It buried in his throat with a sound like meat hitting stone. He collapsed without grace.
“Ghost...mark one,” I whispered.
The next three went down fast. Maris’s cover fire turned their helmets into glowing slag. I reached the cages, sliced through the locks with a heated rune blade, and looked at the nearest prisoner. It was a girl no older than fifteen with eyes too wide and innocent for this world.
“Can you run?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Then run south. Don’t stop. If you see fur, hide.”
She hesitated. “Who are you?”
“Ghost,” I said. “Pretend you never heard that.”
She bolted. One by one, the captives followed, stumbling into the dark. For one heartbeat, I let myself imagine it would be enough.
Then the wind shifted.
I heard a low growl. All I could smell was wet fur and alpha musk.
“Mar,” I said quietly. “We’ve got company.”
“Ghost, pull out....”
Too late.
He dropped from the ridge like a shadow sculpted from muscle and ice. Massive and tall, his armor black and gold, with sigils etched into the plates. Eyes bright as molten coin. The kind of creature that made evolution look like a bad joke.
The Alpha.
“Impressive work,” he said. His voice rumbled through the cold, lazy and certain. “Freeing my property.”
I raised the rifle. “Property’s a weird word for people. You practice that in the mirror?”
His smile bared teeth. “Only when I’m bored.”
“Then today’s your lucky day.”
I fired. Blue light slammed into his chest. He barely rocked back. “Silver charge,” he mused. “Clever.”
He moved too fast to track, one heartbeat he was yards away, the next his hand was around my wrist, crushing bone against metal. I twisted, slammed a boot into his knee, tore free, and fired again. The bolt grazed his shoulder, leaving a smoking gash. He glanced at it, amused.
“Human,” he said softly. “You shouldn’t be able to move like that.”
“Maybe you’re just slow.”
He lunged. I ducked, rolled, and came up swinging my blade. It caught his jawline, slicing skin. Blood hissed, not red but molten gold.
He looked almost delighted. “You bite back.”
“Working on my résumé.”
He caught my throat, and slammed me against the crawler hard enough to dent metal. Pain flared through my body as snow fell from the branches above us. His eyes burned brighter. “Tell me your name.”
“Ghost.”
“Your real name.”
“That is my real name.” I spat blood at him. “I like a bit of sexy mystery.”
His smile vanished. “Fine.”
Then he bit me.
It was brutal. Just a blur of teeth and fire, tearing through flesh and muscle. The pain was instant and fucking electric. I felt his power crash into me...it was ancient, wild, and wrong.....and something inside me answered. The snow around us hissed and melted. He jerked back, his eyes narrowing at the glow under my skin.
“What are you?” he growled.
“Bad news,” I gasped.
He hesitated, studying me, then stepped away. “Heal fast, Ghost. I want to see what you become.”
And then he was gone, vanishing into the trees as if the forest swallowed him whole.
Silence returned, broken only by the crackle of my comm.
“Ghost? Report! Ghost!”
I slid down the crawler’s side, my hand pressed to the wound. The blood shimmered like embers beneath my skin. My breath steamed in short, uneven bursts.
“Still breathing,” I whispered.
“Did you get the slaves out?”
“Most. I got bit.”
“Bit? As in...”
“As in it’s fine, Mar. Probably rabies.”
“Ghost...what the fuck!?”
“Gotta go. My new boyfriend’s got commitment issues.”
The snow hissed beneath me where it touched my blood. I looked at the spreading melt circle and laughed softly, half-delirious.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Totally fine.”
I staggered toward the treeline, the forest watching, and the moon following like it enjoyed the show.
The Dominion Pact had built this world on blood and fear. Maybe it was time someone burned their paperwork.
If the wolves wanted a ghost, I’d give them one.