Vera
I don’t waste time settling in. The cabin is a tool, not a home. I spend two days moving with a quiet purpose that feels alien and yet perfectly natural. I eat the simple rations of jerky and hard bread left on a shelf. I sharpen the two hunting knives I found tucked under the cot until their edges gleam. And I watch.
From the edge of the woods, I observe the pack's rhythms. The shift changes for the guards. The patrol routes. Just as I remember, they are predictable, sloppy. Felix’s arrogance permeates everything, a sickness of overconfidence. He believes the pack’s borders are secure because he commands it to be so.
On the morning of the third day, I walk to the outcast’s training ring. It’s a dusty, neglected circle of land behind the armory, where those in disfavor are sent to sweat out their frustrations. It’s where I know I will find her.
Lena is there, alone. Her black hair is tied back in a severe braid, and she moves with a brutal efficiency, her sword a blur of silver as she attacks a battered wooden dummy. Each strike is a controlled explosion of rage. She was once the pack’s most promising warrior, before she defended me and Felix broke her career over his knee.
I stop at the edge of the ring. For a moment, I just watch the raw, wasted talent. She doesn’t notice me. Or she pretends not to.
“They gave you a blunt sword,” I say. My voice is quiet, but it cuts through the morning air.
Her movements don’t stop. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. The impacts echo in the quiet. “They don’t want me hurting myself,” she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“No,” I correct her. “They don’t want you hurting them.”
That makes her stop. She plants the tip of the sword in the dirt and slowly turns to face me. Her eyes are chips of grey flint, hard and unforgiving. She looks me up and down, taking in my leathers. A flicker of something, maybe surprise, crosses her face before it’s gone.
“What do you want, little lady?” she asks, the title a deliberate insult. “Come to see how the other half lives? It’s a long way from the Alpha’s side.”
“I’m no longer at his side,” I state simply.
“I heard,” she scoffs, pulling a rag from her belt and wiping the sweat from her brow. “You made quite a scene. Rejected the great Alpha. Very brave. Or very stupid.”
“Maybe neither,” I say, taking a step into the ring. The dust puffs up around my boots. “I need your help.”
Lena laughs. It’s a harsh, bitter sound. “You need my help? That’s rich. Where was your help when Felix demoted me to guarding the northern fence in midwinter? Where were you when your future mate called me a traitorous bitch for saying you deserved a fair hearing?”
Her words are blades, and I let them hit. I deserve them. The old Vera deserves them. “I was a coward,” I admit. The confession hangs in the air between us. “I was weak, and I was afraid. I let him silence me. And I let him hurt you. I will not make that mistake again.”
She narrows her eyes, suspicious. “What is this? Some game to get back in his good graces? You come to me, get me to do something stupid, and he ‘forgives’ you for your little tantrum at the ceremony?”
“He will never forgive me,” I say, my voice cold with certainty. “And I will never ask him to. This has nothing to do with him. It has to do with the pack.”
“Always the pack,” she spits, turning back to the dummy. “Don’t wave that flag at me. I’ve seen what Alphas do in the name of ‘the pack’.”
“Then do it for the children he’s sending to their deaths,” I say.
The sword stops mid-swing. She turns back to me, her knuckles white where she grips the hilt. “What did you say?”
“The western border patrol. He put Jon and Lyra’s boy on it. And two of the other new trainees. They’re sixteen, Lena. He’s sending them into the Whisperwood with two seasoned warriors who think it’s a milk run.”
Her expression is a mask of warring disbelief and concern. “The Whisperwood is clear. Patrols have said so for months.”
“The patrols are lazy,” I counter. “They stick to the main trail. The feral pack that was driven south last season has circled back. They’re hungry, and they’ve been watching the patrols. They know the schedule. They know the route.”
She stares at me, her mind clearly working, weighing my words. “How could you possibly know this? Did you overhear something?”
I can’t tell her the truth. Not yet. So I give her a piece of it. “I’ve been watching. Felix is so focused on consolidating his power and planning his grand Conclave appearance that he has become deaf and blind. He dismisses any report that contradicts his own sense of order. He calls it fear-mongering.”
“He does,” she admits grudgingly. “He demoted Kael for reporting rogue tracks two weeks ago.”
“Exactly. The ambush will happen at the river crossing. By dusk. The feral alpha is a big brute, grey with a shredded left ear. He’ll lead the attack from the rocks on the north bank to drive the patrol into the water.”
The detail about the alpha’s ear is a gamble. But I remember it from the grim report given after their bodies were found. It’s a detail that lends my story the weight of truth.
Lena’s gaze is sharp, searching my face for any hint of deception. “This is insane. You’re asking me to abandon my post and follow you into the woods based on… what? A feeling?”
“I’m asking you to trust that my reasons for hating Felix are now as strong as yours,” I say, my voice low and intense. “I’m asking you to believe that I would rather die than see more of our own get hurt because of his pride. If I’m wrong, you can march me back to Felix myself and tell him I’ve lost my mind. But if I’m right…”
I let the words hang there. If I’m right, a patrol dies.
She looks past me, toward the Whisperwood, a dark line on the horizon. I can see the warrior in her calculating the odds, the risk. Her loyalty to the pack, the true pack, is stronger than her hatred for me.
Finally, she shoves the blunt sword into a weapons rack with a clang of disgust. “Fine.”
She walks to a locked chest in the corner of the ring, pulls a key from her boot, and opens it. Inside is her true sword, a fine, sharp-edged weapon that hums in the air as she draws it. She checks its balance, her movements fluid and deadly.
“Get two more blades from the armory,” she commands, her voice all business. “And a medical kit. Meet me at the old hunter’s path in ten minutes. If you’re late, I’m gone.”
“I won’t be late,” I promise.
She gives me one last, hard look. “If this is a trick, Vera, there won’t be enough of you left for Felix to punish.”
I just nod. There’s nothing more to say.
We move through the forest like ghosts, sticking to the shadows. Lena sets a punishing pace, but I keep up, my body remembering the rhythms of the hunt. We don’t speak. The only sounds are the rustle of leaves and the distant call of a hawk.
We reach the ridge overlooking the river crossing an hour before dusk. We conceal ourselves in a thicket of ferns, the damp earth cool against my palms.
“We wait,” Lena whispers, her eyes scanning the opposite bank.
“They’ll be here soon,” I say with a certainty that makes her glance at me.
We wait in silence as the sun dips lower, painting the sky in shades of orange and blood. Doubt begins to creep into Lena’s posture. Her jaw is tight. She’s ready to tear into me for this wild goose chase.
Then I hear it. A faint snap of a twig. Not from the patrol’s direction, but from the rocks to our left. I touch Lena’s arm. She freezes, her head cocking as she listens.
One by one, they emerge. Feral wolves. Larger and leaner than our pack wolves, with mangy coats and a desperate hunger in their yellow eyes. They move with a chilling coordination, flanking the trail, melting into the undergrowth.
And then I see him. On the highest rock on the north bank. The alpha. He is huge, grey, and his left ear is a mess of shredded cartilage and scar tissue.
Lena’s breath hitches. Her eyes widen as she looks from the feral alpha to me. The question is there, plain as day. How?
Before she can ask, we hear the patrol. Four young figures in Shadowclaw leather, walking with the careless confidence of youth. The two trainees are laughing at a joke, their attention everywhere but where it should be.
“Gods,” Lena breathes, her hand tightening on her sword. “There are at least a dozen of them.”
“More like fifteen,” I correct her quietly, my mind already working. “We can’t take them all head on. We need to break their charge and kill the alpha. The rest will scatter.”
Lena looks at me, surprised by my immediate tactical assessment. “Break the charge? It’s just us two.”
“You take the three on the left flank. Go for the tendons. Hamstring them. Don’t get bogged down,” I command, my voice low and sure. “I will draw the alpha.”
“Draw the… Are you insane? He’ll rip you apart!”
“He’s overconfident,” I say, unsheathing my blades. “He’ll come for the throat. I’ll be waiting.”
There’s no more time to argue. The patrol steps into the clearing by the river. The trap is sprung.
The feral alpha lets out a piercing howl. The world explodes into a blur of fur and teeth. The trainees scream as wolves burst from the trees. The two senior warriors are overwhelmed in seconds.
“Now, Lena!” I yell.
She doesn’t hesitate. She launches herself down the ridge like an avenging fury, her sword a silver arc of death. She slams into the flank of the attack, her blade weaving a deadly pattern.
My focus is singular. I stand, step out from the ferns, and raise my knives. “Hey!” I scream, my voice raw. “Looking for me, you ugly bastard?”
The grey alpha’s head snaps in my direction. He was moving toward one of the downed trainees, but my challenge diverts him. He bares his teeth in a snarl, yellow eyes fixing on me with murderous intent. He sees me as a lone, foolish female. An easy kill.
Good.
He bounds toward me, covering the ground with terrifying speed. I hold my ground, my heart hammering, my vision narrowing to the space between his eyes. He leaps.
I don’t back away. I drop. I slide under his flying body, the stench of wet fur and rot filling my senses. As I go, I drive both my knives up into his exposed belly, burying them to the hilt.
He lands with a strangled yelp of shock and pain. He stumbles, trying to turn, to get at me, but the damage is done. I roll to my feet as he collapses, blood pouring onto the forest floor. He gives one last, shuddering gasp, and is still.
Silence falls over the clearing, broken only by the whimpers of the wounded trainees. The remaining feral wolves, seeing their alpha fall, falter. Their pack bond is broken. With a few panicked yips, they turn and vanish back into the trees.
Lena stands over the bodies of three of them, her chest heaving. She stares at the dead alpha, then at me. Her face is a mask of utter, profound shock.
The surviving patrol members, two of them wounded but alive, crawl away from the carnage, their eyes wide with terror and awe.
I walk over to the alpha’s body and pull my bloody knives free. I wipe them on the grass and slide them back into their sheaths. Then I turn to face Lena.
She meets my gaze, the fury and suspicion gone, replaced by a dawning, fearful respect. “That wasn’t a guess,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. “The shredded ear. The attack from the rocks. You knew. Every detail. How?”
I walk over to her, my legs feeling steadier than they have any right to be. “I know that Felix is a liability. His pride is going to get this entire pack killed.”
“That’s not an answer, Vera.”
“It’s the only one that matters right now,” I say, my eyes boring into hers. “He left them to die. We saved them. That is the only truth you need. You have a choice to make, Lena. You can continue to serve the Alpha who threw you away and would have let these children be slaughtered, or you can stand with me.”
I extend a hand, not in command, but in offering. It’s streaked with the blood of the feral alpha.
She looks at my hand, then back to my face. She sees the girl who was once a coward, and sees something new standing in her place. A leader. A warrior. A survivor.
She sheathes her sword. Then, without a word, she clasps my forearm, her grip as strong and unyielding as iron.
“To the death,” she says.
And I know she means it. The first stone of my new foundation is laid. And it is sealed in blood.
