Brielle
The name Stoneclaw lands like an axe blow in the clearing. A wave of raw panic ripples through the pack. Whispers turn to frantic murmurs, shouts of disbelief.
“Stoneclaw? They’re butchers.”
“They follow the old laws. No mercy.”
“Marcus sold us out.”
Theron’s face is pale, his authority crumbling with every passing second. He tries to shout over the noise, but his voice is swallowed by the rising tide of fear.
Then, a scent cuts through the chaos.
It’s not from our pack. It’s wild and clean, sharp as a shard of ice. Pine needles crushed underfoot, the biting cold of the first winter frost, and something else. Something ancient and powerful.
The scent is an order.
The pack falls silent. One by one, the panicked shouts die in their throats. Every head turns toward the northern path.
He stands at the edge of the clearing, as if he materialized from the shadows of the forest. The word ‘large’ is not enough. He is a mountain given the shape of a man. Broad shoulders strain the dark leather of his tunic, and his height makes him tower over even our tallest warriors. His hair is the black of a starless night, pulled back from a face that looks carved from granite.
He is not just an Alpha. He is *the* Alpha. The concept made real.
He walks forward, his heavy boots making no sound on the packed earth. Two other wolves, clearly his Betas, follow a step behind him, their eyes scanning the crowd with cold assessment. But my attention is fixed on him. His presence radiates a raw power that presses down on us, demanding submission. It stills the air, thickens it until I can barely draw a breath.
This is Alpha Grant of Stoneclaw.
He stops at the base of the Alpha’s rock, his gaze sweeping over his new pack. His eyes are the color of a winter sky, a pale, piercing grey that seems to see everything. He looks at our warriors and I see the faintest flicker of disappointment in his expression. He looks at the she-wolves and his face is an unreadable mask of stone.
I try to shrink back, to melt into the bodies around me. I am at the edge of the crowd, my usual place, my cloak pulled tight. I am nothing. A ghost. He will not see me. He cannot see me.
His gaze continues its slow, methodical sweep. It passes over me. For a single, blessed second, it passes right over me. I almost sag with relief.
Then it snaps back.
His eyes lock onto mine across the clearing.
The world doesn’t just stop. It shatters.
A bolt of lightning arcs between us, invisible but devastating. It hits me in the chest, a physical blow that steals the air from my lungs. My heart stutters, then slams against my ribs with a frantic, painful rhythm. My vision narrows until he is the only thing I can see.
In the deepest part of my soul, a sleeping beast awakens. My wolf, the one I keep drugged and chained with herbs and willpower, surges against her bonds with a force I have never felt before. She howls a single, triumphant word into the screaming silence of my mind.
*Mate.*
The word is a brand, seared onto my soul. A claim. A verdict.
He feels it too. I can see it. His stone-like composure cracks. A muscle in his jaw clenches. His pale eyes widen almost imperceptibly, the grey darkening like a gathering storm.
Then his scent hits me again, but this time it is not a general presence in the air. It is a targeted assault. It bypasses the air, my nose, my lungs. It manifests directly inside me, a torrent of pine and winter frost flooding every cell in my body. It’s an invasion. It seeks out my wolf, calling to her, promising her everything she has ever been denied.
Everything I have denied her.
The world rushes back in a dizzying wave of sound and color. My knees feel weak. The pouch of herbs at my hip suddenly feels pathetic, a child’s toy against an earthquake. My safe room feels like a cardboard box. My wards feel like whispers against a hurricane.
Grant’s gaze is still locked on mine. He holds the attention of the entire pack, yet in this moment, there is no one else in the world but the two of us, caught in the invisible, undeniable grip of the bond.
He takes a single, deliberate step in my direction.
Panic, cold and absolute, grips me. I have to get away. I have to run.
I turn, shoving my way blindly through the frozen crowd. Someone murmurs a protest, but I don’t hear them. All I hear is the frantic thudding of my own heart and the triumphant howl of my wolf. All I feel is the magnetic pull of his presence at my back. All I smell is him.
I break free from the crowd and I don’t look back. I run. I run as if the wild hunt itself is at my heels. I run from the clearing, from the pack, from the impossible truth in those winter grey eyes.
But I cannot run from the scent that follows me, that clings to me, that has already soaked into my very being.
The Haze is in three days.
For the first time in my life, I am not certain I will survive it. For the first time, I am not certain I can keep myself locked away.
Because the monster is not at the door anymore.
He is the Alpha. And my own wolf is screaming for him to break it down.
