Ten: Restless Wolf
Ronald’s POV
The whisper haunted me long after the corridors emptied.
The Council knows what you are.
It repeated like an oath I hadn’t sworn, clawing through my thoughts until I couldn’t breathe.
By the time dawn’s light touched the fortress, I was already in the training yard, sweat slicking my back, steel splitting air.
Every strike echoed her name.
Every breath reeked of her scent.
I wanted the exhaustion to burn her out of me. It didn’t.
The wooden dummy shattered beneath my sword. Splinters flew; the sound did nothing to quiet the beast in my chest. My wolf snarled, restless, hungry.
She’s close, he whispered. She thinks of you too.
I swung again, missed and growled low. “Shut up.”
“Talking to yourself now?”
Lucas stood in the doorway, arms crossed, sweat and soot still on his clothes from the night before.
He looked at me over the way one inspects a wound that refuses to heal.
“You should rest,” he said.
“I don’t rest.”
He stepped closer. “The pack’s whispering, Ronald. They think you’re losing control. Keeping a rogue alive after a Council attack isn’t a good look.”
“They’ll obey.”
“For now. But they’re scared and scared wolves look for new leaders.”
I wiped the sweat from my brow. “You came to warn me?”
“To remind you who you are. An Alpha, not a man chasing the scent of a woman who’ll ruin him.”
My claws slid free before I could stop them. Lucas didn’t move.
“You’re slipping,” he said quietly. “And the Council will see it soon enough.”
He left me with the echo of my own growl.
By nightfall, the fortress had gone still again. The fires had been doused, the wounded were sleeping, and yet I couldn’t shake the sense that something inside these walls still hunted me.
Or perhaps it was me doing the hunting.
Her scent drifted faintly through the corridor, familiar now, sharper tonight.
I followed it before I thought better of it, past the main hall and into the west wing that most wolves avoided after dark.
The forbidden library loomed ahead, its heavy door cracked open.
Moonlight spilled across the threshold.
I stepped inside. Dust rose around my boots; the air smelled of parchment, ink, and her.
Mara stood at the far table, bent over an open book, candlelight trembling near her hands. She didn’t hear me at first, too focused, lips moving silently as her fingers traced the faded text.
When I spoke, my voice came rougher than I intended.
“Enjoying yourself?”
She spun, startled, the candle jerking in her grasp. “I..”
“What are you doing here?”
Her eyes darted toward the shelves. “Cleaning. No one ever does.”
“Try again.”
She hesitated, then lifted her chin. “Maybe I wanted to see what you’re hiding from your own pack.”
The nerve of her. Even bruised and pale, she looked like she could command the room.
“Nothing in here concerns you,” I said.
“Then why lock it?”
I advanced a step; she didn’t move back. “Because some knowledge kills faster than claws.”
Her gaze flicked down to the open book between us. The edge of a title caught my eye before she slammed it shut: Records of the Northern Packs.
For a heartbeat, I thought I saw a word stamped across the margin..Silver… something but the light shifted and it was gone.
“What were you reading?” I demanded.
“History.” Her tone was even. “Yours.”
“That’s forbidden.”
“So is keeping me alive.”
The silence that followed was too thick. I could hear her pulse, fast but steady. My wolf pressed against my skin, desperate to close the distance.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said finally.
“You shouldn’t care.”
She moved past me, brushing my arm as she went. The contact was a spark, heat racing up my veins before I could suppress it.
I caught her wrist, not hard enough to bruise but enough to make her stop. “If the Council finds you in here, they’ll call it treason.”
“Then maybe you should tell them,” she said softly.
Our eyes met, hers defiant, mine burning and for a second the world narrowed to the sound of our breathing.
Then she pulled free, snuffed out the candle, and left me in darkness.
I stared after her, the faint scent of parchment and wildflowers lingering in the air. My gaze dropped to the book she’d abandoned, its pages fluttering open as if caught by invisible wind.
A half-torn illustration glimmered in the moonlight, a crest carved in silver ink, shaped like a crescent fang. Something about it twisted at the edge of my memory.
I reached out, fingertips brushing the page.
Silverfang.
The name flickered through my mind, distant, half-forgotten. But before the memory could surface, the torchlight in the hall flared, footsteps, voices, the world returning.
Whatever truth she was chasing, it would come for both of us soon enough.
And I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to stop her… or follow her into it.
I glanced once more at the open page, that half-familiar crest gleaming faintly in the dark and though I couldn’t yet place it, something deep inside me knew I had seen it before.
I closed the book and stepped back into shadows.