Chapter 48: The Weight of Three Wolves

Chapter 48: The Weight of Three Wolves

Alex’s POV

Lyra moved through the forest like she owned it.

Sharp steps, steady breathing, chin high; the opposite of Ella in every way. Even beneath the chaos of the night, she carried herself like a girl who had never been told “no.”

Her presence was a storm.

And it was slamming into everything inside me.

Ella walked a few paces behind her, shoulders tight, eyes lowered every time Lyra glanced back. She looked smaller again, like the shadows were swallowing her piece by piece.

I hated it.
I hated how her confidence dimmed the moment Lyra appeared.
I hated how easily the past threatened to undo the strength she’d fought to build.

I moved closer to Ella. “Stay with me.”

She nodded, barely. “I’m trying.”

“Ella.” I slowed my pace until she met my eyes. “She doesn’t control you anymore.”

Her breath trembled. “Old habits don’t disappear overnight.”

Before I could answer, Lyra scoffed loudly ahead of us.
“Well, isn’t this touching,” she muttered. “You two whispering like a pair of doe-eyed lovers. Cute.”

Ella stiffened.

I didn’t give Lyra the satisfaction of a reaction. “Focus on the trail.”

“Oh, I am,” she said, looking over her shoulder at me. “But your little omega there? She’s flinching like I’m about to bite her.”

“I wonder why,” Ella whispered under her breath.

Lyra halted suddenly. She turned, eyes narrowing.

“What was that?”

Ella froze like she’d been caught stealing the moon.

I stepped between them. “We’re wasting time.”

Lyra’s jaw tightened; not fear, not guilt, something else. Something darker. But she turned away and continued walking.

The night grew colder as we climbed deeper into the trees. Frost clung to the roots. The sky was thinning toward dawn.

We weren’t just running from Darius anymore, we were running toward a secret none of us fully understood.

We reached the cliffside ridge just as the first hints of sunrise brushed the horizon. Lyra stopped at a wall of vines and pushed aside a thick curtain of leaves.

Behind them, a narrow path descended into a shadowed ravine.

“There,” Lyra said. “The outpost is below. Hidden by the cliffs. No patrol ever finds it.”

I scanned the drop, the slope, the narrow stone ledges. “You’ve used it before?”

Lyra hesitated.

That hesitation told me everything.

“It was where Father sent me,” she said finally, her voice quieter, “when he thought discipline would fix me.”

Ella’s breath caught.

“He locked you away?” she whispered.

Lyra shrugged too casually. “Only for a week at a time. Maybe two.”

Her tone was light, but her eyes…
Her eyes were the same as mine when I spoke about my parents.

Broken in ways silence doesn’t heal.

I exchanged a glance with Ella, she saw it too.

“Come on,” Lyra murmured. “We don’t have time for sympathy.”

But she moved slower now, as if returning to this place cost her something she didn’t want us to see.

The descent was brutal. Loose stone, cold air, a drop steep enough to break bones. Ella slipped twice, and each time my wolf roared through my skin.

The third time, I grabbed her wrist.

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” I said.

She looked up, eyes shining with exhaustion and something else. “I’m not pretending.”

Our faces were inches apart. My grip tightened gently.

Behind us, Lyra cleared her throat with a sharp, annoyed sound. “If you two start kissing in the middle of a cliff, I’m leaving you here.”

Ella jerked her hand back, cheeks burning.

I didn’t look away from her even then.

Lyra was loud.
Ella was honest.

And my wolf had already chosen.

We reached the bottom at last. A narrow wooden door sat wedged between slabs of stone, nearly invisible unless you knew where to look.

Lyra brushed dirt off the old lock. “It might be stuck.”

I stepped forward. “Let me.”

One strike with my shoulder, the rusted metal snapped. The door groaned open, coughing a cloud of dust into the cold air.

Inside, darkness swallowed everything. A single corridor stretched ahead, lined with rooms carved into rock. Old beds. Shelves. Chains on one wall.

Ella stopped as she entered. “This place… it feels like a prison.”

Lyra didn’t look at her. “It was.”

Her voice had lost all its sharp edges.

I placed a hand on the wall. “We’ll make it safe. You have my word.”

Lyra opened her mouth to answer but froze.

A sudden gust of wind rushed through the corridor, blowing out the torch I had lit. The temperature plummeted.

My wolf stiffened.
Ella shivered violently.
Lyra’s eyes widened, fear finally cracking her façade.

“Something’s wrong,” she whispered.

“That wasn’t the wind,” I said.

Then a scent hit me.

Ashes, Blood and Power.

Darius.

Ella grabbed my arm. “He shouldn’t be awake yet.”

“He isn’t,” Lyra said, panic rising in her voice. “That’s not him.”
She stepped back. “That’s— that’s…”

A howl ripped through the cliffs above us.

Not a wolf’s howl.

A summon, A command.

A calling.

Ella’s fingers dug into my sleeve. “Alex… what is that?”

My stomach turned to ice.

“That,” I said, “is one of Darius’s enforcers. A Bloodbound.”

Lyra swore under her breath. “He sent them. Even half-dead, he sent them.”

And then; Footsteps, Claws scraping stone.
Something descending into the ravine.

Something powerful, Something wrong.

“We have to barricade the entrance,” I said.

Ella ran to gather stones. Lyra grabbed old planks. My wolf pushed at my skin, demanding to shift, to protect.

But before we reached the door, A heavy shadow fell across the threshold.

Huge.
Hunched.
Breathing like the world was choking him.

Then a voice warped, ragged, distorted by blood magic:

“Alpha Darius commands you to surrender the girl.”

My blood froze.

“Which girl?” I growled.

The creature bared its teeth.

“The impostor.”

Ella whimpered. Lyra stepped in front of her instinctively surprising even herself.

“You’ll have to go through all of us,” Lyra spat.

The Bloodbound tilted its head, sniffing, eyes glowing red.

“I was hoping you would say that.”

It lunged.

And the outpost shook as the battle began in the dark.