Ronan’s voice slid amused through the air. “You know, for someone who claims to hate me, you spend a suspicious amount of time in my way lately.”
She didn’t break stride, only reached up, snapping a low branch aside, and let it swing back, close enough to just barely miss Ronan’s shoulder.
“If you stopped taking up so much damn space,” she huffed, “I wouldn’t have to.”
Somewhere ahead, someone coughed, far too loudly to be coincidence.
Ronan’s laugh was a rough sound, more breath than humor as he watched her ahead, sunlight sparking off her leathers as she wrapped an arm around Elva’s shoulders.
They crested the ridge by dusk, the trail thinning to pale grain and brittle grass.
Below, tucked between dying oaks, the village ofSunhavenwinked with light. Fires burned low in pits, children’s laughter drifting through the smoke.
Elysian dismounted first, scanning the thatched roofs and narrow alleys. “We’re not stopping here,” he muttered. “Too close to the border. Too many mouths that remember faces.”
Ronan nodded, diverting the group silently down the hill, where they remained cloaked in the dying gold of the sun.
Before they could get far, Verena stilled where she stood just beyond the line of horses, head pitched toward the tree line. “Do you hear that?”
Nezra raised a brow. “Hear what?”
But Ronan heard it too. A low growl.
The sound rippled through the pines, the rumble announcing dominance long before its teeth showed. The horses shifted as Ford muttered a curse beneath his breath, stepping closer to Inessa, who quickly took a stride further.
All eyes were on the forest when the trees parted.
A direwolf stepped into the clearing, massive, a creature of contrast. Half of it was midnight dark, the other polished white, perfectly divided from its throat down its spine. Its eyes gleamed, reflecting the firelight from the village below.
Verena didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Except for the subtle twitch of her lips.
Ronan’s hand went to his blade. “Don’t,” he warned, sensing what stirred beneath her skin.
The wolf’s gaze found her first, curious, and then shifted to Ronan. A snarl tore the air, teeth glinting like shards of bone. It lunged a step forward, hackles rising, every movement measured as its nostrils flared, head whipping to where Elva hid behind Callum and Elysian both.
It snarled again at Elysian’s half-drawn sword, and then it bolted. Not aiming for them, but down the hill, toward the sound of singing.
Verena moved. One blink, and she was gone.
“Verena!” Ronan shoved past the others as children’s laughter broke into screams.
The others shouted as he took off after her, but the world narrowed to the flash of her hair, the threat of the wolf, and the promise that whatever this was, it wasn’t chance.
“Stay here,” he yelled to the others, not waiting for argument.
Smoke led the way as he descended, his vision blurring to shadow as he unsheathed his sword. The scent of blood hit him first as he entered the town’s paths, and then he saw them.
Verena and the wolf.
They stood in the center of the ruined square where the villagers had all scattered, fires sputtering in the mud. The beast’s fur shimmered as its head lowered, eyes locked on hers.
Ronan slowed, heirloom hanging at his side, dark mist warping low along the ground. A body lay crumpled beneath the wolf’s paw, a young woman, skin ashen, chest unmoving.
“Verena,” he muttered. “Don’t move.”
But she didn’t hear him as she stepped closer, her voice following in a low, melodic haunt. The language was older than the fire in Ronan’s veins, older than Ryuu itself.
The wolf’s ears flicked back as it growled. Then, impossibly, it bent. Its massive head dipped low, muzzle nearly brushing the dirt.
