Time slowed.
Mira watched the rogue’s body coil and launch, every muscle straining, jaws gaping. Spittle flew from its mouth, catching the light. Its milky eyes were nothing like any sane wolf’s—no gold, no depth, just a cloudy, hungry blankness.
She shoved Rafe sideways with a ferocity that made her side burn in sympathetic echo to his.
He stumbled, one hand flying to the fence to catch himself, teeth bared in a snarl she wasn’t sure was pain or protest.
The rogue slammed into her.
Its weight hit like a falling tree. Air whooshed out of her lungs as they went down, her back slamming the packed earth. Claws raked at her arms, teeth snapping inches from her throat.
Her wolf roared.
She twisted, bringing her forearm up between its jaws. Pain lanced as teeth sank into flesh. Hot blood spilled down her skin.
“Mira!” someone screamed—Yara, from somewhere to the left.
Rafe’s howl split the air.
It wasn’t the practiced, controlled sound of a pack enforcer. It was raw. Broken. Furious in a way that had nothing to do with duty and everything to do with the bond.
He moved.
Later, he wouldn’t remember exactly how he did it without tearing his stitches. Adrenaline, his wolf, the sheer terror of watching his mate under another wolf’s teeth—it all blurred.
One moment he clung to the fence, vision tunneling. The next he was on the rogue’s back, arms locked around its throat, fingers digging into greasy fur.
The creature snarled, wrenching its head away from Mira’s bleeding arm to snap at him instead. Its teeth clashed inches from his face. Its breath reeked of rot and something older, colder. Something that made his skin crawl.
He squeezed.
He’d strangled wolves before. In battle, sometimes it was the only option, teeth and claws already occupied. Wrap arms around a neck, squeeze until the windpipe crushed.
This felt different.
The neck under his forearm wasn’t… right. Too thick in some places, too thin in others, bones knobby and wrong. The fur was greasy, clumping around his fingers.
He snarled anyway and squeezed harder.
“Mira, move!” Kai shouted.
Mira rolled, gasping, clutching her bitten arm to her chest as she scrambled out from under clawed paws. Her vision flashed white at the edges. The bond flared, Rafe’s pain and hers tangling.
The rogue bucked, trying to shake Rafe off. Wren dove in from the side, teeth bared, half-shifted, claws sinking into its haunch. Another warrior darted in, slashing at its flank.
The thing didn’t yelp. Didn’t react like a wolf should. It twisted its head at an angle that made Rafe’s stomach flip, jaws snapping toward Wren’s throat with unnatural reach.
“Down!” Rafe roared.
Wren dropped, instincts honed by years kicking in. The rogue’s teeth whistled over her head.
“Eyes!” Mira yelled hoarsely, scrabbling in her belt pouch with trembling fingers. They closed around the coarse sack of bitter powder she’d grabbed on instinct.
She flung herself forward, ignoring the screaming protest of her bitten arm.
The rogue swung its head toward her scent.
Mira launched herself, left hand grabbing a clump of its muzzle fur, yanking its head toward her. Its jaws gaped, slavering.
She flung the powder.
It burst in a cloud of stinging dust, coating its eyes, nose, open mouth.
The rogue jerked, choking. A horrible, wet gurgle tore from its throat. It thrashed, flinging Rafe sideways.
He hit the ground hard, stars exploding behind his eyes. His side screamed. He bit down on a groan, rolled, and was up again, legs shaky but holding.
The rogue reared, pawing at its own face with clumsy swipes. The powder burned Mira’s nose from two paces away; the effect on the creature was magnified a hundredfold.
It howled, a high, keening sound that made every hair on Rafe’s body stand up.
Its milky eyes bled red. Literally. Thin trickles of crimson seeped from the corners, trailing down its muzzle.
“Now!” Wren snarled.
Kai’s arrow flew.
This time, it hit true.
The shaft sank deep into the rogue’s eye, burying to the fletching.
The creature screamed.
The sound tore at Rafe’s ears, at his wolf. It wasn’t just pain. It was… something leaving. Something ripped out.
For a heartbeat, he smelled something new under the rot. Old stone. Cold water deep under the earth. A whisper of words he didn’t understand.
Then it was gone.
The rogue sagged, legs buckling.
It crashed to the dirt, dust puffing up around it.
Silence fell, thick and heavy.
The pups’ whimpers broke it first. The warriors’ ragged breaths followed. Somewhere, a dog barked hysterically.
Mira knelt where she’d fallen, bitten arm cradled against her chest, chest heaving. Blood dripped between her fingers, pattering darkly into the dirt.
Rafe staggered to her side.
Her scent—blood, fear, fury—hit him like a blow.
He dropped to his knees, heedless of his own wound, and wrapped his good arm around her shoulders without thinking.
“You idiot,” he rasped into her hair. “You stepped in front of me. You—”
“You were going to stand there like a stunned cow,” she shot back, voice shaky. “Someone had to move.”
“Not you,” he growled. “Not… ever.”
She sagged for half a heartbeat against his chest, then shoved weakly at him with her uninjured hand. “Don’t be… dramatic. You weigh a ton.”
“Both of you, up,” Wren snapped, appearing at their side. There was blood on her jaws and in her hair. Her eyes were wild.
Rafe turned his head slowly to look at the rogue.
It lay still, chest not rising. The arrow jutted from its ruined eye. Blood and something thicker oozed sluggishly from the wound.
Up close, it looked less like a wolf and more like… a carcass that had been puppeted. Patches of skin were bare, the fur fallen out to reveal mottled flesh. Old scars crisscrossed its flanks. Its teeth were worn down in strange places, as if it had chewed stone.
“What in the Mother’s name is that,” Wren whispered.
“Possessed,” Rafe said hoarsely. “Cursed. Something… riding it.”
Mira swallowed bile. “We need to burn it.”
“Agreed,” Wren said. “Far from here. And we need to scrub the pens. The smell—”
She broke off, nose wrinkling.
Mira’s bitten arm throbbed in time with her heartbeat.
Rafe’s stomach dropped.
The rogue’s saliva had smelled wrong. Felt wrong on his skin where it had splashed.
Mira’s bite marks were already swelling, the edges darkening in a way he did not like.
“Your arm,” he said sharply.
“It’s fine,” she lied.
“Don’t you fucking lie to me,” he snarled. “I know that smell.”
“So do I,” she snapped back. “It’s my job.”
“Let me see,” he demanded.
“Rafe,” Wren cut in, voice low and urgent. “Inside. Now. Both of you.”
“It’s a scratch,” Mira protested.
Wren’s gaze snapped to her arm. She swore viciously.
“It’s not a scratch,” she said. “And you know it.”
Mira’s wolf whimpered.
Her human brain went stubborn.
“I’ve seen worse,” she gritted out.
“I haven’t,” Rafe said, voice raw. “Not from something like that and had it end well.”
Mira’s breath hitched.
Flash: Toren’s chest. The way the flesh had blistered weirdly around the claws’ entry. The way the wound had tried to close too fast and failed.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
The world tilted.
Rafe’s good hand shot out, catching her elbow as her knees buckled.
“I’ve got you,” he rasped.
“Don’t,” she muttered weakly. “You’ll tear—”
“Fuck my stitches,” he snapped. “You’re not hitting the ground.”
Wren whistled, a sharp command. “Kai! Yara! Get the pups inside. Ede, Mera, deal with the carcass—burn it north of the ridge. No one touches the bite. No one. Mira—”
“I know,” Mira said through gritted teeth. “I’ll… handle it.”
“You’ll let him help,” Wren said, nodding at Rafe. “You’ve seen this once. He’s seen it more.”
“I don’t need—” Mira began.
The world went fuzzy at the edges.
Her bitten arm pulsed, heat rolling up it like fire under her skin. It crawled toward her shoulder in a slow, insidious creep.
Her wolf snarled, thrashing, stamping against the encroaching wrongness.
Rafe felt it through the bond. Felt her pain and something else: an invading heat that was not fever, not natural. A twisting, like roots burrowing.
Panic shot through him.
“She needs to lie down,” he barked. “Now.”
“For once, we agree,” Wren said. She moved to Mira’s other side, slipping under her uninjured arm.
Between them, they half-carried, half-dragged her back toward the healer’s house.
Mira hated being carried.
“Put me… down,” she protested weakly. “I can… walk…”
“Shut up,” Rafe and Wren said in unison.
The wrongness in her arm crawled higher.
She ground her teeth.
“I am going to… kill… that rogue,” she muttered.
“It’s already dead,” Rafe said tightly.
“Again,” she said. “Harder.”
He almost laughed. It came out strangled.
They got her to the table. Rafe’s side screamed, but adrenaline and the bond overrode it. He eased her down as gently as he could, every motion careful.
She hissed when her bitten arm bumped the wood. Her face had gone paper-pale under the freckles, lips bloodless.
He’d never seen her look so… fragile.
It scared him more than any wound he’d taken himself.
“Knife,” she panted. “Belt. Now.”
He grabbed the small knife from her belt and put it in her uninjured hand.
She took a deep breath.
“Rafe,” she said, voice shaking. “I’m going to need you to do exactly what I say and not argue. Can you manage that or do I sedate you first?”
“I can do it,” he said. “What do you need?”
“Tourniquet,” she said through clenched teeth. “Above the bite. Tight. We slow the spread, we maybe keep it from reaching my heart before we figure out what it is.”
He grabbed a length of clean cloth from the shelf and wrapped it around her upper arm, just below the shoulder, fingers trembling. He tied it off with a jerk, then twisted until she winced.
“Too tight?” he asked.
“Perfect,” she gasped.
Wren hovered, eyes dark. “Do we know what it is?”
“No,” Mira snapped. “That’s the fun part.”
Rafe swallowed. “The one we killed before… the elders said its bite carried… something. Old sickness. Magic. Wolves who survived it sometimes came out wrong. Hearing voices. Snapping at shadows.”
“Great,” Mira muttered. “Just what I need. More voices in my head.”
He squeezed her wrist gently. “We won’t let it in.”
“Big talk from the man who just got half-possessed by pain in my cabin,” she said, but her fingers tightened around his.
He looked at Wren. “Your wards.”
“What about them?” Wren demanded.
“Can we strengthen them? Specifically around her?” he asked. “If this is… curse-ridden… maybe the old protections the packs used against witches could slow it.”
Wren blinked. “You know those?”
“My mother did,” he said. “She was from farther north. Old blood. She taught me songs. Symbols. Joren laughed at them. Called them superstition. But when the possessed wolf hit our border, the only ones it hesitated near were the dens she’d marked.”
Mira stared at him. “You could have led with that.”
“Was a bit busy bleeding,” he snapped.
“Fair,” she conceded.
Wren’s gaze sharpened. “Show me.”
He hesitated.
“Do you trust me?” Wren asked, eyes hard.
He looked at Mira.
Her bitten arm pulsed. Her jaw was set, eyes bright with pain and stubbornness.
“I trust her,” he said. “And she trusts you. That’s enough.”
He nodded once.
“Salt,” he said. “Charcoal. Something of iron. And… your blood, Alpha. And hers.” He jerked his chin toward Mira.
“Wonderful,” Mira muttered. “More bleeding.”
“You already are,” Wren pointed out. “Might as well make it useful.”
She moved quickly, gathering what he’d asked for. Mira hissed under her breath as Wren nicked her good wrist with a clean knife, catching the blood in a small bowl already dusted with ground salt and crushed charcoal.
Rafe bit his own thumb, let a drop fall in.
The mixture hissed, faintly.
“Old magic,” Wren murmured.
“Dangerous,” Mira panted.
“Effective,” Rafe said. “If the stories are true.”
He dipped his fingers in the dark paste.
His hand shook.
He knelt by the foot of the table and began to draw on the wood.
Symbols. Circles within circles. Lines crossing like webbing. Old runes that felt like someone else’s language in his mouth, but his fingers remembered.
He murmured as he worked, under his breath, the syllables harsh and soft in turn.
Mira watched, eyes hazy.
“What are you… saying?” she asked.
“Names,” he said. “Old ones. Not exactly gods. Concepts. ‘Barrier.’ ‘Repel.’ ‘Return to sender.’”
Her lips twitched. “Return to sender. I like that one.”
He smiled faintly.
Wren moved around the table, smearing the paste on the floor in a wide circle, reinforcing the lines with her own blood when it thinned.
When they were done, the air felt… heavier. Charged.
The wrongness in Mira’s arm pushed against an invisible wall.
She felt it. Like heat caught under her skin, trapped instead of flowing freely.
Her wolf paced, agitated.
“It’s… working,” she whispered.
“For now,” Rafe said. “It’ll slow it. Maybe enough for you to… cut it out.”
She swallowed. “You mean… cut my arm open and scoop out whatever’s inside like rotten fruit, hoping we get all the seeds.”
He winced. “Colorful.”
“Accurate,” she said.
Wren’s jaw clenched. “If we have to take the arm…”
Mira glared. “You won’t.”
“If we have to,” Wren repeated, voice iron, “we will. Better one arm than your life.”
Rafe’s throat closed. The idea of Mira one-armed made some cold rage pool in his gut—not at Wren, not at Mira, but at the thing that had done this.
“We’ll fight before we cut,” he said.
Mira’s lips curved. “Spoken like a true Ironclaw.”
He snorted. “Don’t insult me.”
She laughed weakly, then winced as the wrongness in her arm flared, pressing against the ward.
“That’s not good,” she gritted out.
“What?” Wren demanded.
“It’s… angry,” Mira said. “If… if a curse can be. It doesn’t like being trapped.”
“Good,” Rafe said. “Let it rage. We rage better.”
Her eyes met his.
For a heartbeat, everything else fell away.
The cabin. The rogue corpse smoking on some distant pyre. Joren’s threats. Wren’s tension. The elders’ worries.
Just two wolves, linked by blood and bond and now a shared fight in her own veins.
“You’re helping me,” she said softly. “You don’t have to. You could let it take me and call it vengeance.”
He flinched. “I don’t want vengeance. Not… like that.”
“How then,” she whispered. “How do you want it?”
He swallowed.
“Different,” he said. “I want something different than what we’ve done to each other for years. I don’t know what it looks like yet. But it’s not… this.”
She closed her eyes briefly. Opened them again.
“Fine,” she said. “Different. But don’t you dare die once we drag me through this. I refuse to be the only idiot left holding hope.”
He huffed a breath. “Deal.”
Wren cleared her throat. “As touching as this is, can we focus on not letting my healer be eaten from the inside out?”
“Right,” Mira muttered. “Rafe. Knife.”
He handed it to her, hilt first.
Her bitten arm throbbed.
She took a breath.
“Time to see what the Mother has shoved under my skin,” she said. “If I start speaking in three voices, kill me.”
Rafe swallowed hard. “Not funny.”
“Not… entirely joking,” she admitted.
He tightened his grip on her good hand.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Do it anyway.”
She pressed the blade to her own flesh, just above the bite, and dragged.
Pain flared, bright and vicious.
Blood welled, dark and thick.
The wrongness writhed.
The bond blazed.
Rafe held on.
Wren watched like a wolf at the edge of a cliff, ready to leap.
Outside, the rogue’s smoke curled into the sky, carrying with it whispers of old magic and new wars.
Inside, under a healer’s roof, a different kind of battle began.
And somewhere deep under the earth, something old stirred, scenting the clash of curses and oaths, of blood and bond.
It smiled.
The game, it thought, had finally become interesting.