Chapter 3

FIONA

My name, my whole life, had been reduced to a box. The darkness smelled of damp and old iron. I didn’t know how long I lay there, drifting between black and a prickling half-consciousness, until a voice,soft and urgent,nudged me back from whatever thin place I’d almost fallen into.

“Fiona? Fiona? If you can hear me, try to blink,” it breathed close to my ear.

For a dizzy second I thought I’d gone to the Moon World, the place the old stories said the dead slept. Why would I imagine that? I’m only a wolfless Omega. The Moon Goddess wouldn’t spare someone like me.

“Fiona, you need to open those eyes. I need you to be strong,” the voice urged again, gentler this time.

My lids felt glued shut, the effort to lift them like trying to move mountains. Shapes swam into view: a wavering ceiling, the suggestion of a doorway, then a face framed by hair the color of ash,sharp features, eyes fixed on me with something like concern. The voice didn’t belong to a child or an elder. It belonged to a woman who had lived long enough to learn how to hold herself steady in crises.

“Hello, Fiona. Finally, you’re awake. I’ve been trying to get you back to us,” she said.

My mouth tasted of metal and fear. I tried to speak, but my throat was raw. The memory of being dragged, the slaps, the jeers and rose like bile. “How would you even think of attacking Luna?” the woman asked abruptly, as if the answer were obvious.

Confusion swam through my fog. Did they think I’d tried to kill Ryan? The very thought was absurd. I had loved him, stupidly, blindly, and then he had spat on me.

“Madam Barbara?” I said, because that was the name of the questioning ghost.

The woman’s lips tightened. “Trust me, she is the last person you want to see. Did you try to kill the Alpha too?” She sounded disgusted

I swallowed. My memory was a jagged thing: the slap, the guards, Sabrina’s cruel laugh. “Ryan?” I whispered.

She stared at me as if I’d asked the strangest thing. “Are you asking me?” she repeated, incredulous. “Do you even know what’s been done? Do you know the situation?”

I didn’t. I couldn’t. My head felt thick and heavy. The woman’s face loomed closer, urgent now. “You need to find somewhere to go,” she hissed. “If you stay, you’ll be killed.”

A pounding came from the corridor, and a young messenger burst in, breathless and wild-eyed. “Luna Sabrina is on her way here!” he panted.

Sabrina. The name hit like a blow. I felt the old cold of dread coil around my ribs. That girl wanted me gone in a way that wasn’t merely social cruelty, she wanted me dead.

Barbara, if that was who this was, moved with sudden decisiveness. She helped me to my feet, her hands efficient and steady despite the murmur of indecision on her face. She led me through a low doorway into a narrow passage.

“There’s a back stair that leads into the woods,” she whispered as she pushed me down the steps. “Go. Don’t look back. Head east until you find the old birches, then keep walking. Don’t stop for anything. Find someplace to hide until you can make a plan.”

My lungs burned with the movement, but I nodded. I had no strength left for words anyway. She pressed a small bundle into my hand, some cheese, a scrap of bread, and a torn shawl. “I can’t stay seen with you,” she said, voice low. “But I couldn’t leave you to die. Now go.”

I stumbled into the night like something half-formed: a shadow fleeing from fire. The cold air bit through my rags and slapped the tears from my face. The pack house loomed behind me, its windows glowing like watchful eyes. I wanted to turn, to scream every accusation until the whole world knew the truth, but my feet refused to obey a body grown too small for hope.

I ran.

For days I drifted on the edge of the woods, sleeping in hollows and waking to the ache of hunger. The forest was both refuge and wilderness, comfort in its anonymity, danger in every crook and shadow. I clung to the rhythm of walking as if movement could erase the memory of the mating yard and Ryan’s spit.

On the third night, I heard the first snap: thin, like a twig under a boot. I froze, every muscle tight. “Who’s there?” I called, voice too small. No answer. A second snap, closer this time, and my pulse hammered.

I should have been able to run. I should have had someone to protect me. Instead, my feet betrayed me; I saw a dark shape surge and a heavy weight knocked me to the loam. The forest floor bit into my palms and I tasted iron again, fear, not blood, for now.

When I turned, the thing that landed atop me was not one wolf but many, black shadows with teeth like knives. One shifted to human form, spiky hair standing like a crown, tattoos crawling up his arms like black vines. His grin showed too many teeth; saliva glittered at the corners of his mouth.

“You’re far from home, meat,” he said, his voice rough, amusement curling in the last word.

The others closed in, eyes glinting like coals. My throat constricted. “I’m…” I started, but something cold and cruel laughed.

“You don’t smell right,” another said, running a hand along my arm as if testing the texture of prey. “Not wolf. Not human. Empty skin.” The words echoed from stories Kush had told me in the kitchen—stories of the rogue packs, the vampire wolves who had been cast out for their hunger and madness. Legend, I’d thought. A nightmare now standing over me.

My mouth opened and closed on air. They circled, a tightening ring. Fear pooled in the hollow of my belly, hot and sharp.

“We’ll see how sweet empty skin is,” the spiked-haired one said, and his command was a blade. “Finish her off.”

They lunged.

For a terrible, breathless second I felt utterly alone… no Alpha’s protection, no friend’s hand, nothing but the cold earth and the sound of my own ragged breaths. Then, as their shadows poured over me, a strange part of me, thin as a thread and older than my fear, stirred inside, a whisper of something awakened. It was small and sudden and older than any story: a voice that did not belong entirely to me.

Fight. Run. Survive.

My heart obeyed even when my legs trembled to move. The world narrowed to the taste of fear and the sharpness of coming teeth. The night held its breath.