Instinct takes over. I shift mid-dodge, my wolf bursting free. I catch her in mid-air and throw her to the ground hard, using my weight to pin her down.
That’s when her front leg comes off.
It just…detaches. Cleanly. Like it was never really attached in the first place.
Horror floods through me, cold and absolute. My wolf yelps and scrambles backward, staring at the body part lying in the grass. At the thing still trying to attack us, unbothered by the missing limb, hobbling forward on three legs.
The other wolves are whimpering louder now, their sounds full of distress and grief.
I look at them, then back at her. At what used to be her. And understanding crashes over me like ice water.
Someone killed her. Someone killed the female alpha, and now they’re using her corpse like a puppet.
A necromancer.
An anguished howl tears from my throat before I can stop it. The sound echoes through the forest, raw and broken. My wolfis enraged and devastated. This wolf protected us. She stood between us and danger countless times. And now she’s…this.
Still hobbling toward us. Three-legged and dead and still trying to hurt us because someone is making her.
I back away, my wolf’s heart breaking. I can’t do it. I can’t kill her. She’s already dead, but I can’t bring myself to hurt her more. I can’t—
Another wolf explodes from the shadows.
This one is massive, pure silver, with eyes that glow with power. Kieran’s wolf. He moves like liquid death, grabbing the female alpha’s neck in his jaws and twisting.
The head comes off. The body crumples.
I collapse, shifting back to human form. I fall to my knees on the forest floor, unable to care about anything except the grief tearing through my chest.
If I could cry in wolf form, I would have. But now the tears come freely, blurring my vision as Kieran shifts back. His hands move in complex patterns, magic crackling through the air—dark magic, the kind that deals with death. He’s releasing her, I realize. Setting her soul free from whatever spell was holding her.
I close my eyes, unable to watch. The grief is too much. It’s too heavy.
Then, I feel his arms around me, warm and solid.
“It’s over,” he says quietly.
I open my eyes and look at the body lying in the grass. The head severed clean. The leg lying a few feet away.
I weep harder.
I pull away from Kieran and crawl over to her on my hands and knees. I gather her still form in my arms, cradling what’s left of her against my chest. Blood stains my shirt, but I don’t care.
The other wolves surround us immediately. They press in close, howling their grief to the moon. Some nudge the deadalpha gently with their noses, like they’re trying to wake her. Others lean against me, sharing their warmth, their sorrow.
“We’ll give her a proper burial,” Kieran says softly.
I can’t respond. The words won’t come through the sobs wracking my body.
He kneels beside me and starts digging with his bare hands. Not using magic for this. Like it needs to be done right, with effort and intention and respect.
After a moment, I set her body down carefully and start digging, too. My fingers sink into the cold earth, pulling up handfuls of dirt. Tears drip from my face into the growing hole. My hands shake so badly, I can hardly grip the soil, but I keep digging.
We work in silence.
The only sounds are our breathing, the soft thud of dirt being moved, the quiet whimpers of the grieving pack around us, and my crying that won’t stop.
When the grave is deep enough, Kieran lifts her body with a reverence that makes my chest ache. He lays her in the earth gently, arranging her carefully as if she’s just sleeping. When he is done, we start covering her.
