Shattered and Saved (Ashen Wolves #2)

19

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K O E N

When Avril lashed out at me, it wasn’t her accusations that stung - it was the immediate regret that followed. I watched her stare at her trembling hands, as if they didn’t belong to her. As if she no longer had control over her own body. Slowly, she curled them into fists, not to strike, but to contain whatever monster was clawing its way out.

The moment realization dawned on her, my heart twisted. Each time she apologized, her words were thick with guilt. I’d never seen fear in her eyes before, but suddenly, it was etched into every line of her face, audible in her every breath. Fear of hurting the ones she loved. Of destroying everything she was trying to protect. Of losing herself.

Once the shock wore off, I tried to approach her, desperate to offer some kind of comfort. But she wouldn’t let me. Maybe my danger sense was off, but I couldn’t believe she’d ever truly hurt me. She, however, wasn’t as certain. It was clear that she no longer trusted herself.

After her outburst, Avril locked herself in her chambers. She refused to leave or let anyone visit her. For an entire day, she had meals delivered to her room, and communicated with her team through mindlink only. In the meantime, she kept her mind occupied by reading whatever books they left at her door, running against the clock to try and solve the mystery hounding her pack before they were all gone.

It shattered my heart to see her cage herself, like an animal on the verge of going rabid. With no way to mindlink her, I depended on her friends for updates about her condition, but their reassurances did little to quell the storm of anxiety brewing inside me. I needed to hear her voice - to be by her side. Until I could, my thoughts would continue to spiral, each scenario more haunting than the last, keeping me on edge as I wondered if she would be okay. I hated that I couldn’t help her, no matter how desperately I wanted to.

In her absence, though, I understood what she meant. What I assumed was her taking her anger out on me soon proved to be a substantiated accusation. I learned about the gossip going around from the few pack members who were still clear to roam freely. They talked openly about how they believed I was the cause of it all. That I had disrupted nature’s balance by corrupting their sacred lands with my mundane presence.

I used to be fairly skeptical until I was thrown into a world where legends were real. Now, I might as well assume that curses and higher magical forces actually existed. For all I knew, I could damn well be the problem, and Avril might have been right.

Rhea, on the other hand, insisted that the rumors were entirely unfounded and total nonsense. Since she and Elijah were among the few members of Azure Smoke who hadn’t snapped yet, I was spending most of my time with them. However, the gamma was mostly busy keeping his mate company outside of our training sessions, which meant it was usually just me and the delta.

Though she was reserved and not much of a conversation starter, I found her to be good company. Not that I had the luxury of choice as options had been scarce lately, but I appreciated her presence despite her stoicism. While tension hung in the air, she appeared unfazed. If she felt any worry about succumbing to whatever had plagued the rest of her pack, she kept it hidden. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine it happening to her; her emotional control was nothing short of enviable.

After another morning of training with Elijah, I was sitting at one of the empty tables at the town square, alone with my thoughts, when Rhea’s voice jolted me back to reality.

“Hey, Koen,” she called. I lifted my gaze to find her walking toward me, expressionless as always. “We’re out of liquid silver. I’m going to the shaman to see if she can prepare some wolfsbane for the tranquilizers. Wanna come?”

Her invitation surprised me. Avril mentioned that they had a shaman at Azure Smoke, but I hadn’t heard of her since. I’d never met any druids before, and as curiosity got the best of me, I took the opportunity. Besides, it wasn’t as if I had more important things to do.

I was growing accustomed to Rhea’s quiet presence. In silence, she led me through an unfamiliar part of the territory. The forest thickened around us, but soon we emerged into a sunlit clearing. At its center stood a modest wooden house, encircled by a vibrant garden filled with exotic flowers, fragrant herbs, and colorful mushrooms. It looked just like I imagined a druid’s home would.

As Rhea knocked on the door, she announced, “Vereya, it’s me. Are you there?”

“Come in, Rhea,” a raspy, yet gentle feminine voice replied.

The delta didn’t hesitate to push the door open, and I followed her cautiously. Different plants were also present inside the shaman’s house, their scents so strong it was almost overwhelming. It was a little messy, with pots in all shapes and sizes scattered on the furniture, open books lying around the floor, and faded scrolls curling at the edges, their intricate symbols barely legible under layers of dust.

A large wooden table dominated the center of the room, its surface cluttered with vials of colorful liquids, each bubbling softly as if alive. Behind it stood a short, old woman with gray hair. When she turned around to face us, I was surprised to notice that her eyes were white and glassy. Yet, it felt as though she was staring straight at me.

“Oh, you brought the alpha’s rescue!” she cooed, dropping the book she was carrying to come closer. “Koen, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied simply, too stunned to say anything else at first. “Can you… see me?”

“Of course!” she chuckled. “My eyes may not be of much use anymore, but you don’t need them to see.”

“Due to her affinity with life and magic, she can sense your essence despite being blind,” Rhea clarified.

“Not in spite of it - because of it!” Vereya corrected. “You mustn’t rely solely on sight to experience the world. Instead, you should learn to feel it with all your senses.” She studied me a little longer before turning to Rhea. “Anyway, what did you want from this old hag, my dear?”

“An old hag who’s powerful enough to take me down without even touching me,” Rhea observed playfully, and for the first time, I saw her smile. Her face fell a little as she answered, “We’re out of tranquilizers. Could you make us something to use instead of silver?”

“Sure thing,” Vereya replied, already heading to one of the counters covered in different dried herbs.

While I watched the shaman work, Rhea got comfortable on a small couch, shoving away a pile of clothes to make space. There was nothing to do but wait now, yet I couldn’t find it in me to be as patient as her. Everyone was going out of their minds, doing whatever they could to find a solution for the anger outbursts, and I had been of no help. In fact, there was a chance I was the cause of it.

“Very sad what has befallen this pack,” Vereya remarked as she crushed a mixture of herbs, petals, and nectar with a mortar and pestle. “It must be a message from the Gods. They’re trying to tell us something.”

“Could they be warning of a…unwanted presence?” I found myself asking as worry settled in. Rhea immediately shot a glance at me, but remained silent.

“Perhaps,” she suggested, and I felt a chill to the bone. “But it is impossible to guess. There are thousands of possibilities. Only one thing is certain…” She made a brief pause, scraping the mixture in her hands into a vial. “Limitless power is like a river with no banks - it floods and drowns all in its path. If it overflows, that power consumes the very soul meant to wield it.”

Vereya’s words made me pause, my chest tightening as something stirred deep in my mind. For some reason, I recalled the story Avril told me on the day she brought me here.

The Ashen Wolves were once protectors of peace and balance, wielding their power to uphold laws and safeguard order. But now, with their full strength restored and no purpose to anchor them, that power had twisted into something dark. Centuries of suppression and injustice had given way to madness, rage boiling over with no outlet but destruction. They had nothing to fight for, nothing to serve. Just anger, raw and wild, like a storm with no direction.

Ashen Wolves didn’t disappear along with lycans, but we lost our purpose, Avril’s words echoed in my mind, louder than they should.

A thought flickered, fragile and uncertain. What if the scales had been tipped when balance was lost?

“A river with no banks… and no drain,” I murmured, noticing how Rhea scrunched her brows in confusion at my seemingly random thought. I didn’t have time to explain. “It’s not just that it lacks boundaries - it has no clear path, no destiny. No outlet.”

Vereya froze, her glassy eyes locking with mine. “Indeed,” she said, and in the subtle shift of her expression, I knew she understood what I was getting at.

Perhaps the wolves at Azure Smoke were spiraling because their power was overflowing without a purpose to guide it. Without a mission, their unchecked strength was feeding off their anger, overwhelming their minds as it lost direction. But…

“If we can contain our power until we find a new purpose, it won’t warp our sanity,” Rhea finished, her eyes widening as she, too, realized what we might be onto.

“You think that could be it?” I asked her, my tone a little too anxious as a tiny flame of hope warmed me from the inside.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” she offered, rising from her seat to approach us. “Vereya, can you help us?”

The shaman nodded determinedly. “I will see what I can do.”

Now, all we could do was test our theory - and pray it wasn’t another dead end, because it was the only solution we had left.