Lysa took the news better than Juno expected.
Which was, admittedly, a low bar.
They found her in the map room, hunched over a spread of parchment with Corin, Soren, and a messenger raven perched on the back of a chair, preening its feathers.
The scent of ink and wax hung in the air.
“Alpha,” Juno said.
Lysa didn’t look up immediately. “If this is about patrol schedules, talk to Corin,” she said. “If it’s about food, talk to Sari. If it’s about Soren, throw him off the balcony.”
Soren put a hand to his heart. “I’m wounded,” he said. “Again. Repeatedly.”
“Good,” Lysa said.
Riven cleared his throat. “It’s about the Maw,” he said.
Lysa’s head snapped up.
Her eyes, tired but sharp, flicked between them.
The faint flush on Juno’s cheeks, the lingering tension in Riven’s shoulders, the way they stood a little too close.
She took it all in.
Then gestured sharply. “Out,” she said to everyone else.
Corin opened her mouth to protest, then caught the look and shut it.
Soren raised his hands. “I know when I’m not wanted,” he said. “I also know when I can eavesdrop from a distance. See you.”
He and the raven slipped out, Corin on his heels, door closing with a soft thud.
Lysa leaned back in her chair, folding her arms.
“Report,” she said.
Juno exchanged a glance with Riven.
He nodded slightly.
“Dream,” Juno said. “Last night. Mother Below. She…pushed. Harder than before.”
Lysa’s jaw clenched. “Details,” she said.
Juno gave them.
The circle.
The not-Riven.
The fake younger versions of themselves.
The pit.
The pool.
Pulling on the pack-mind.
She didn’t leave out her panic.
Or Riven’s.
Lysa’s face didn’t change much as she spoke, but the tightness around her mouth deepened.
“So she’s trying manipulation now,” Lysa said when Juno finished. “Not just teeth. Images. What-ifs.”
“She always did,” Riven said quietly. “In the pit. She’d show me…my brother. My pack. The day before the avalanche. She likes…rewinding. Pretending she can fix what she broke if you just do what she says.”
Lysa’s fingers tapped once against her arm. “And you pulled on the pack,” she said to Juno. “In there.”
Juno nodded. “I didn’t know I could, like that,” she said. “It was…instinct. She was…big. I needed…more.”
Lysa’s gaze sharpened. “Did you feel any pushback from them?” she asked. “Any…leak?”
Juno shook her head. “No,” she said. “Just…teeth. Support. Then…silence. Like someone slammed a door.”
“That would be me,” Lysa said dryly. “I felt something press at the edges of the pack-mind like a cold, slimy tongue. I didn’t like it. I bit.”
Juno almost smiled. “Thank you,” she said.
Lysa huffed. “Don’t thank me for doing my job,” she said. “If she tries that again, you do the same. Call. We push. Together.”
She turned to Riven. “You?” she asked. “Any aftereffects?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Headache,” he said. “Less now. No…whispers. Just…her usual…sullen…resentment.”
Lysa’s mouth twitched. “Good,” she said. “Let her sulk.”
Her gaze dropped briefly to the way Juno’s hand had unconsciously found the hem of Riven’s sleeve and twisted in the fabric.
Her eyes narrowed faintly.
“And the…other thing?” she asked, voice deceptively mild.
Juno’s stomach dropped. “What other—” she started.
Lysa raised an eyebrow.
Riven cleared his throat. “We…kissed,” he offered. “Again.”
Lysa’s lips thinned. “I assumed,” she said. “You both smell like each other’s mouths.”
Juno’s face flamed. “Is that—” she started.
“Any of my business?” Lysa finished. “Yes. Unfortunately.”
Juno bristled. “We’re adults,” she said. “We can—”
“This isn’t about your age,” Lysa cut in, voice sharpening. “It’s about your roles. Your…weight.”
She stood, palms flat on the table.
“You two are not just wolves in my pack,” she said. “You are the focal points of a fight every alpha on this mountain is watching. You are symbols. Weapons. Stories. Your choices don’t just hit your own hearts. They ripple.”
Juno’s temper flared.
“So what?” she snapped. “We’re supposed to be celibate until we kill a god? Never touch each other because someone might write a bad poem about it?”
Riven winced.
Lysa’s eyes flashed. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “I’m not telling you not to touch. I’m telling you to know what you’re doing when you do.”
She jabbed a finger at Juno.
“You’re hungry,” she said bluntly. “For him. For connection. For something that isn’t war. So is he. Good. That hunger will keep you moving. It will also make you do reckless shit if you don’t look at it square.”
Juno’s throat worked.
Riven spoke up. “We’re…trying,” he said. “To…not let it…run us.”
Lysa’s gaze slid to him.
He met it.
“Are you?” she asked.
He nodded once. “We set rules,” he said. “We…broke one. A little. Then…stopped.”
Juno swallowed.
Lysa’s expression softened by a fraction.
“Alright,” she said. “Here’s my piece: I won’t bar you from each other. I won’t pretend your bond doesn’t exist. That would be stupid. And cruel. But I *will* ask you to be…brutally honest with yourselves.”
She looked at Juno.
“If you’re kissing him because you want to,” she said, “because *you* choose it, not because the bond is screaming or because you’re scared tomorrow you’ll die and never get the chance—that’s one thing. If you’re kissing him because you’re trying to plug a hole the Maw left, that’s another.”
The words hit Juno like a physical blow.
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Thought about it.
Riven’s hand, warm on her waist.
The way his voice had broken when he said *yours*.
The ache that had been in her chest long before she’d scented him.
“Both,” she said hoarsely. “Probably. Right now. It’s…both.”
Lysa nodded once. “Good,” she said. “Admitting that makes you less likely to mistake one for the other.”
She turned to Riven.
“And you,” she said. “If you’re…with her…because you think she’s a way to redeem yourself, or because you think dying in her bed somehow makes your story less ugly, I will personally throw you in the deepest hole I can find.”
His eyes flashed. “It’s not—” he started.
Lysa held up a hand. “Think,” she said. “Before you answer.”
His jaw clenched.
He thought.
The room was very quiet.
Finally, slowly, he said, “She makes me…want to live,” he said. “Not just…die better. That’s…new. And terrifying. And I hate it. And I want it.”
Juno’s heart squeezed.
Lysa’s gaze softened more than Juno had seen in months.
“Alright,” she said. “That’s a start.”
She sat back down heavily.
“You have my blessing,” she said dryly. “To be idiots together. As long as you can still bite when I need you to.”
Juno exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t thank me,” Lysa muttered. “Just don’t make me regret not chaining one of you in the basement.”
Soren’s muffled voice drifted faintly through the door. “I heard that! If anyone’s getting chained, it’s me!”
“Shut *up,* Soren,” three voices shouted from outside in unison.
Lysa pinched the bridge of her nose again. “Get out,” she said to Juno and Riven. “Sleep. Or don’t. Just be ready. She won’t stop at dreams.”
***
The Maw didn’t.
The next few days were…quiet, on the surface.
Snowstorms rolled in and out. Patrols slogged through drifts. The elders’ party to Alder Run checked in via raven—Nyra’s scrawled notes about “pungent water” and “Helvar’s very blunt mate” made Sari snort.
The black spring there remained stubbornly black.
The pool under Pine Crest stayed contained.
The song about the bite-back wolves spread, mutating slightly with each new rendition. One version added a verse about Mira “weaving wards with laughing hands,” which she pretended not to enjoy far too much. Another insisted Lysa had personally headbutted the Maw, a rumor she did not bother to correct.
Juno and Riven trained.
Together.
Sometimes in the ring.
Sometimes on the mountain trails.
Sometimes in quieter ways—mapping out, on parchment, what they remembered of the pit, of the caves, of the way the Maw’s voice felt when it slid into their minds versus when it tried to push through the bond.
They argued.
Fought.
Laughed.
Kissed—carefully. Deliberately. In corners where they had a moment alone.
They did not go further.
Not yet.
The pressure built.
Under their skin.
Under the mountain.
Under the world.
Juno started noticing small cracks in unexpected places.
Not in the rock.
In people.
Daro, a normally unflappable older scout, snapped at a pup for bumping into him and then apologized three times, shaking. “I keep hearing…dripping,” he admitted to Juno later. “In my sleep. Like something’s leaking.”
Sari burned bread twice in one morning, distracted enough to curse herself blue.
Mira got quiet for longer stretches, staring into the fire with a furrow between her brows Juno hadn’t seen before.
“It’s like there’s a…hum,” Mira tried to explain one night. “In the back of my skull. Not loud. Just…there. Like the wards, but…inverted.”
Juno listened.
She felt it too.
A vibration.
Low.
Constant.
Like the mountain was grinding its teeth.
She brought it to Lysa.
Lysa frowned. “I feel it,” she said. “But it’s not all hers. Some of it is us. Waking things that have slept for a long time. Old magic creaks when you move it.”
“That sounds…bad,” Juno said.
Lysa’s mouth curved humorlessly. “Change always does,” she said. “Doesn’t mean it is. But we watch the cracks. We shore them up where we can.”
“Who shores up us?” Juno asked before she could stop herself.
Lysa looked at her.
“You do,” she said simply. “For each other.”
It was an answer and not.
***
The first real fracture came from an unexpected quarter.
It started as a small argument in the training yard between Torik—Bram’s nephew—and a young Pine Crest wolf named Lila.
Juno noticed raised voices as she came back from a patrol, snow still clinging to her boots.
“—I’m just saying, we wouldn’t have this problem if your wolves hadn’t poked the Maw in the eye,” Torik was saying, arms flailing. “She’d have stayed in her caves. We’d have stayed in ours.”
Lila bristled. “We *already* had the problem,” she snapped. “She was chewing on our borders long before Juno and Riven bit her.”
“Yeah, and look how *great* that turned out,” Torik shot back. “Now every spring in three valleys is turning black and I can’t close my eyes without seeing teeth.”
“That’s not their fault,” Lila hissed. “That’s her. The Maw. Blame her.”
“I blame whoever put a target on our backs,” Torik growled, jabbing a finger toward the Hall. “And everyone keeps *singing* about it like it’s a fucking festival trick.”
Lila shoved him.
He staggered.
His wolf surged under his skin, eyes flashing.
Juno stepped in automatically.
“Enough,” she said sharply.
Both wolves turned toward her.
Lila’s cheeks flushed. “Sorry, Juno,” she muttered. “He’s being—”
“I’m being realistic,” Torik snapped. “You all are so busy patting yourselves on the back for making a god flinch you’re not thinking about how hard she’s going to bite next time.”
Riven appeared at Juno’s shoulder, silent as a shadow.
“What’s going on?” he asked quietly.
Torik’s lip curled. “Perfect,” he said. “The star of the show.”
Anger flared in Juno’s chest.
“Watch it,” she said.
Torik’s gaze flicked between them.
“You think I don’t see it?” he said. “The way everyone looks at you. Bite-back wolves. Gari. Heroes. You may have ripped a tooth out, but you also painted a damn bull’s-eye on every neck in these mountains.”
Riven’s jaw tightened. “We didn’t start this,” he said. “She’s been chewing on you lot for generations. We just…showed our teeth.”
“And now she’s paying attention,” Torik shot back. “Good job.”
A ring of onlookers had formed.
Mira hovered near Lila, eyes wide.
Kellan leaned against a post, arms folded, watching carefully.
Juno felt Lysa’s gaze from the Hall’s porch.
She knew better than to look.
“Torik,” Juno said evenly. “You’re scared. We all are. But you don’t get to spit that at us like we asked to be…this.”
He sneered. “Didn’t you?” he asked. “You could have walked away from the circle four years ago and never gone back. You kept going. You kept *looking.* You grabbed that bond with both hands when it finally snapped, even though it was chained to…him.”
He jerked his chin at Riven.
Heat flared in Juno’s cheeks.
Shame.
Anger.
Truth.
“Yes,” she said, voice tight. “I did. And I’d do it again. Because pretending we can live small and quiet while she eats our dead piece by piece won’t save us.”
He opened his mouth.
Riven stepped between them.
He didn’t bare his teeth.
Didn’t snarl.
He just…stood there.
Calm.
Solid.
“If you want to hit someone,” he said quietly, “hit me. It’ll feel better than snapping at her.”
Torik’s eyes flashed. “Gladly,” he said, stepping forward.
Juno’s stomach lurched.
Riven didn’t flinch.
His wolf rose under his skin, but he held it.
They stared at each other for a long, taut moment.
Then, from the porch, Bram’s voice rumbled. “Torik.”
The younger wolf stiffened.
Bram descended the steps, beard bristling.
He stopped beside his nephew.
“Walk,” he said.
Torik hesitated.
Bram’s hand landed on his shoulder like a falling tree.
“Now,” he growled.
Torik’s jaw worked.
He shot Juno and Riven one last glare and stomped off with his uncle.
The ring of onlookers dissolved with nervous laughter and mutters.
Mira exhaled. “Well,” she said. “That was…tense.”
Lila rubbed her arms, shoulders hunched. “He’s just scared,” she muttered. “Didn’t mean—”
“He meant it,” Juno said. “And he’s not entirely wrong. We *did* draw attention. But that doesn’t mean we did the wrong thing.”
Kellan pushed off the post. “Right thing and easy thing are rarely the same,” he said. “Any grandmother could tell him that.”
Riven’s shoulders sagged a fraction as the adrenaline ebbed.
Juno touched his arm lightly.
“You okay?” she asked.
He huffed a humorless laugh. “You keep asking me that,” he said.
“And?” she pressed.
He looked at her.
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “He just said out loud what a lot of wolves are thinking. That doesn’t make it less…sharp.”
Her chest ached.
“You are not…a mistake,” she said fiercely. “This bond isn’t a mistake. What we did isn’t a mistake.”
He smiled, small and sad. “I know,” he said. “Intellectually. Emotionally…” He shrugged. “Takes longer.”
She squeezed his arm.
He leaned into it for a heartbeat.
Then straightened, visibly shoving the moment aside.
“Training?” he asked.
She snorted. “Always,” she said.
They walked toward the ring.
Mira watched them go.
Her usual easy smile was gone.
In its place was something more complicated.
Worry.
Resolve.
She glanced toward the Hall porch.
Lysa stood there, arms folded.
Their eyes met.
Lysa nodded once.
Mira squared her shoulders and headed for the healer’s tent, herbs clinking in the pouches at her belt.
Everyone was cracking a little.
Everyone was shoring up everyone else.
It was messy.
It was real.
It was pack.
The Maw, for all her roots and teeth, didn’t have that.
Juno clung to that thought like a lifeline as she stepped into the ring with Riven again, hands up, jaw set.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Always,” she said.
They moved.
They bit.
They burned.