Caleb's Secret Visit
Caleb's Secret Visit
###Chapter 46 ###
\### Caleb’s Secret Visit###
(Adelina’s POV)
The river between us shimmered like a blade.
Dax stood on the opposite bank, his eyes hollowed by exhaustion, his once-imposing frame weakened by distance and regret. I could smell his blood even from here—tainted with poison and something else, something old.
But he wasn’t alone.
A second figure stepped from the shadows behind him.
“Peace, Adelina,” Caleb’s voice carried across the current, steady and low. “We come under parley.”
The air around me thickened.
The rogues I’d posted along the ridge began to move in silent shadows waiting for my command. I raised my hand slightly. “Hold.”
Caleb’s presence hit me harder than I expected. He was leaner, his face roughened by days of travel, but the sharp intelligence in his gray eyes was the same. He bowed once more respect than I’d ever seen him show anyone.
“Why are you here?” I asked, voice cold as the river.
Caleb glanced at Dax. “Because the Council has gone mad. Because you need to hear the truth before it’s too late.”
Dax tried to step forward, but I snarled, the power of the Crest flashing through me. “Don’t.”
He froze, pain flickering across his expression.
“I came to warn you,” Caleb said. “And to offer something I never thought I would a truce.”
I let them cross the river only after Mira and Brin flanked me, ready to tear them apart if I gave the signal. The rogues watched from the treeline, restless. No one trusted them. I barely trusted myself.
Caleb moved first, his steps careful. Dax followed slower, his aura dim, his body trembling like his wolf was barely leashed.
When they reached the grove, the silence was thick enough to suffocate.
“You’ve got five minutes,” I said.
Caleb nodded. “Sylvia has convinced the Council that Hollow Crescent is amassing a rogue army to overthrow the Silver Fang territories. She’s ordered assassins to finish what the hunters failed to do.”
“Let them come,” I said. “They’ll find bones waiting for them.”
Caleb’s mouth tightened. “You can’t fight them all, Adelina. Not yet. Sylvia’s spreading lies faster than we can track them. She’s called for a Blood Summit an emergency gathering of all the Alpha families. The decree she’s drafting will name you an enemy of the packs.”
I stared at him. “She’s that desperate?”
“Desperate and dangerous,” he said. “She’s poisoning Dax to keep him compliant. I’ve seen it. He’s dying by inches.”
I looked at Dax. He didn’t deny it. The faint blue vein at his throat pulsed sickly.
“I tried to stop her,” Dax rasped, his voice hoarse. “Every time I disobey, she sends more wolves to the wilds. To hunt you. To burn villages that give you shelter. I can’t ” His knees buckled.
Mira lunged forward, catching him before he hit the ground.
“Don’t touch him,” I snapped, but the words felt brittle. Seeing him so broken twisted something deep in me that I’d sworn to bury.
Caleb crouched beside him, pressing a small vial to Dax’s lips. “He needs this. It’ll hold the toxin at bay.”
Brin leaned closer. “Toxin?”
Caleb met my eyes. “Sylvia’s using a compound brewed by the Council’s healers. It binds to an Alpha’s bloodline, forcing loyalty through pain. She’s enslaved her own son to keep her seat.”
Rage seared through me, cold and precise. “And you expect me to believe this? To pity him?”
“No,” Caleb said. “I expect you to see that if she wins, no one will ever be free again—not you, not your child, not even your ghosts.”
The words landed like iron. My pulse roared in my ears.
“Say what you came to say, Caleb.”
He rose slowly. “I want to help you. The Council’s fortress has weaknesses—gaps in the border patrol, hidden supply tunnels under the mountain hall. I can give you access. But I need your word that when this ends, you won’t destroy the packs entirely.”
Mira stiffened beside me. “You’d trust the word of the woman your Alpha rejected?”
Caleb’s gaze didn’t waver. “I’d trust the woman who’s done what no Alpha ever has united rogues through loyalty, not fear.”