“Your heartbeat changes when you're anxious. Speeds up, goes irregular. It's distracting.” He ducked under a low branch, held it back just long enough for me to pass. “Whatever you're fretting about, stop.”
The air tasted metallic. Copper and ozone and something darker underneath, like blood left to rot in sunlight. Even the birds had gone silent. No crows calling warnings. No sparrows chattering in the underbrush. Just our breathing and the crunch of frozen leaves under our boots and the weight of something ancient pressing against my skin.
“Why did you agree to this?” I asked. “Patrol with me. I know I'm not your favorite person.”
Alaric was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice had lost some of its usual edge.
“You think I hate you.”
“Don't you?”
“I think you're dangerous.” He stopped walking, turned to face me. The afternoon light filtered through bare branches, painting his features in stripes of shadow and gold. “Not because you're weak. Because you're human, and humans have a way of making wolves stupid. Daniel's been making decisions with hisheart instead of his head since you showed up. That's dangerous for an Alpha.”
“I haven't asked him to change anything.”
“You didn't have to. That's what makes it worse.” Alaric's jaw worked. “My father used to say that wolves fall in love like they're falling off cliffs. No warning, no control, just gravity and impact.” His voice went rough. “He fell for my mother like that. Loved her so much it ate him alive when she died.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't be. It was years ago.” But something in his expression said the wound was still fresh. Still bleeding in the places he didn't let anyone see. “Point is, I've watched what that kind of love does to wolves. Watched it hollow out a man who used to be strong. Watched it turn a leader into a ghost wearing skin.” His eyes met mine. “I don't hate you, Harrington. I'm scared of what you'll do to Daniel when you inevitably break his heart.”
“I'm not planning to break anyone's heart.”
“Neither was my mother. She just died. That was enough.” He started walking again, faster now, like he regretted the confession. “Come on. We've got three more miles to cover.”
We walked in silence after that. But something had shifted between us. The hostility was still there, but muted. Underneath it, I could almost feel understanding trying to take root.
The forest pressed closer the deeper we went. Trees growing thicker, branches tangling overhead until the sky was just glimpses of gray between black fingers. The air grew colder. Heavier. The metallic taste intensified until I could feel it coating my tongue like pennies dissolving on flesh.
Alaric stopped again, head tilted, nostrils flaring. “The scent markers are off. Someone's been through here recently, and they weren't pack.”
“Rogues?”
“Maybe.” His eyes had gone gold around the edges. Not a full shift, but close. “Stay behind me. And if I tell you to run, you run. No arguments. No heroics. Just go.”
“Alaric—”
“I mean it.” He grabbed my arm, and his grip was bruising. Desperate in a way that didn't match his usual cool arrogance. “Daniel would never forgive me if something happened to you. And I'm not carrying that weight. Not on top of everything else.”
The clearing appeared without warning.
One moment we were pushing through dense underbrush, the next we stumbled into open space. Smaller than Moon Clearing. Rougher. Dead grass and bare earth and the sense that nothing had grown here in a very long time.
A ward stone sat at the far edge, half-buried in frozen ground. I could see the corruption eating through it from here. Dark veins spreading through carved granite like rot through wood. Pulsing. Patient. Hungry.
“That's not supposed to look like that,” I said.
“No. It's not.” Alaric's voice had gone flat. Dangerous. “The corruption's reached the outer markers. That means the whole eastern network is compromised.”
He moved toward the stone, and I followed because staying alone felt worse than staying close to the danger. The wrongness intensified with every step. That crawling sensation across my skin like insects made of ice.
The shadows at the tree line moved.
Alaric was on his feet before I processed the threat. His body shifting between one heartbeat and the next, bones cracking and reforming with sounds like wet wood breaking. Where a man had stood, a wolf now crouched. Massive. Dark-furred with silver streaking through like lightning through storm clouds. Gold eyes fixed on the darkness with an intensity that made my blood run cold.
Because the things emerging from the trees weren't wolves.
They might have been, once. They had the shape. Four legs, elongated muzzles, bodies built for hunting. But everything else was wrong. Fur matted with something dark and viscous that reflected no light. Eyes that glowed with sickly green luminescence, empty of anything resembling intelligence. Mouths that hung open to show teeth arranged in patterns that made my brain hurt to process, too many, too sharp, pointing in directions that shouldn't be possible.
