And Daniel pressed closer, urging me forward, and I ran with them.
Runningwith wolves wasn't like anything I'd expected.
I couldn't match their speed, couldn't flow through the forest the way they did, but Daniel stayed beside me, adjusting his pace to mine, guiding me around obstacles I couldn't see in the darkness. The pack flowed around us like water, shapes appearing and disappearing between trees, the sound of their movement a constant whisper beneath the wind.
And the forest was alive.
The trees leaning in, the ground rising to meet my feet, the air itself seeming to part around me as I ran. Like the forest was making room. Welcoming me in ways that went beyond physical.
Evan's wolf appeared beside me, tongue lolling in a wolf grin, before he darted ahead to resume his place at the front of the pack. Nate's smaller wolf circled back, brushed against my legs in greeting, then bounded away to chase his mate.
They were beautiful. All of them. Powerful and wild and utterly free, moving through their ancestral territory like they'd been born for exactly this.
Which, I supposed, they had.
The moon rose higher, and its light poured through the canopy like liquid silver. I tilted my head back, let it wash over my face, and felt something shift inside me.
Not painful. Not threatening. Just... awareness.
The moon saw me in ways that had nothing to do with light or sight. It recognized something in my blood, something that had been sleeping for generations, and it was curious. Interested.
You're waking up, the moonlight seemed to whisper.Finally.
I stumbled, and Daniel was there instantly, his wolf form pressing against my side to steady me. His eyes found mine, pale and concerned, and I saw the question in them.
“I'm okay,” I said quietly. “Just... feeling a lot.”
He made that rumbling sound again, and I understood it somehow.I'm here. You're safe.
We kept running.
The pack circled through territory they knew by heart, tracing boundaries, reaffirming their connection to the land. I lost track of time, lost track of everything except the rhythm of my breath, the warmth of Daniel's wolf beside me, the silver light that seemed to follow wherever I went.
It was perfect. Exactly what Nate had promised. Family. The good kind.
And then the wrongness hit.
I felt it before I saw it. A cold pressure in my chest, like someone had pressed ice against my heart. The moonlight seemed to dim, the forest's welcoming presence pulling back, replaced by something sharp and hostile.
Daniel's wolf went rigid beside me. His head snapped toward the eastern treeline, a growl building in his throat that I felt more than heard.
Evan's howl cut through the night. Not joyful this time. Warning.
The pack responded instantly, wolves flowing into defensive formation around me with a coordination that spoke of years of practice. Daniel stayed at my side, his massive form bristling, teeth bared at something I couldn't yet see.
Then I saw them.
Shapes in the darkness, moving wrong. Lurching forward on legs that bent at angles that shouldn't have been possible, eyes reflecting light that had no source, mouths hanging open to reveal teeth that were too sharp, too many.
Rogue wolves. But these were worse than the ones I'd faced before. Bigger. More wrong. Like someone had taken broken things and stitched them together with malice and dark magic.
Eight of them. Maybe more, hidden in the shadows.
The first corrupted wolf lunged.
It moved faster than anything that broken should have been able to move, crossing the distance in bounds that ate up ground. Evan intercepted it mid-leap, his golden form slamming into the creature with enough force to send them both tumbling. Jaws found throat, tore, and the corrupted wolf screamed as black ichor sprayed across the forest floor.
Then everything was chaos.
