Chapter 4
Noa
The trees grow thicker the farther I run.
The dense canopy above swallows what little light filters through from the afternoon sun, creating dark shadows that shift and move like ghosts.
The toes of my shoes catch on roots and fern leaves tangle around my calves.
The ground is softer out here, damp from autumn rain and the light snow that’s fallen recently.
The mud and moss coating the forest floor slides beneath my soles with every step, but I don’t stop.
I can’t. I keep my arms tight around Ivey, her shrill sounds of distress a constant reminder that I can’t afford to fall apart. Or slow down.
Her cries build with each ragged breath she inhales into her little lungs. Each sharp wail cuts through the silence and stillness of the forest like a blade. My chest constricts with each one. If Malvina has recovered and is anywhere near, this will lead her straight to us. Like blood in the water.
Or if someone else is out here—one of the additional soldiers they brought to lay siege on us—it won’t take them long to hunt us down.
I press my lips to Ivey’s temple, whispering whatever words come, soft and hoarse, into the short strands of her fair hair. “Shh, Ivey girl. I know…I know. Just…please, baby. Please be quiet.”
But she doesn’t. She cries harder.
I’m far past the point of being able to think straight.
My thoughts are being pulled in too many directions. I’m doing my best to keep Ivey calm and focus on the terrain before me while also trying to listen for any signs we’re being followed. And through it all, I keep thinking about Ashvale, on what I heard before Malvina ordered us down the trail.
My heart tugs at the image of Lowri’s wolves fighting without her leadership. So many of them came to us as Nightingales first, they’ve already survived unimaginable horrors. And now they’re fighting for each other, for everything we’ve built, and I’m out here running blind with no backup or plan.
I don’t know how I accessed that power with Malvina, but it’s gone now. The threads have vanished. I search within for them again and try to summon them, but there’s nothing. Just quiet. It’s like it never happened at all.
I can’t wait and hope it comes back. I have to keep moving. Ivey’s counting on me.
I don’t notice the dip until my foot’s already sliding.
The ground gives way beneath me, and I stumble hard, barely managing to throw my weight back in time.
I go down hard, landing on my ass. The impact jars every bone from tailbone to neck.
Ivey shrieks, her small fists tangled in my bloody hoodie.
“You’re okay. I’ve got you,” I whisper, bouncing her and patting her back to sooth her. My voice shakes as I choke on a sob I didn’t know was rising.
I sit just long enough to force the panic back down and murmur Ivey’s name again and again, pouring every silent plea for her to calm down into the sound of it.
Then something shifts behind me. Leaves crunch. A twig snaps.
I freeze, head snapping in the direction of the source.
I don’t wait to see what it is. I’m up and running again before the fear can root me in place in the mud. Ivey’s cries are still sharp in my ears, but all I care about now is putting space between us and the threat I can’t yet identify.
I glance over my shoulder, scanning the shadows between trees. I don’t see anything. But that means nothing.
My wolf barks at me, ordering me to keep going. I obey.
When I look forward again, I come to a staggering stop.
The man steps out from behind a wide pine tree.
Tall and skinny, with a long black coat and auburn hair that brushes the tips of his ears.
Pungent with the same corrupt power as the triplets.
His smile spreads slowly as his eyes skim over me, pausing on the blood and dirt staining my clothes, then settle on the baby still wailing against my chest.
“That really is an awful sound they make,” he muses, voice lazy like we’re having a casual chat. “Their bones are so fragile at this age. All it takes is one quick twist and just like that, it’s silent again.”
I stay still, watching every one of his microexpressions and muscle twitches. I don’t blink, refusing to give him even a millimeter of a second’s worth of an advantage over me.
“The sisters told me to stay back,” he continues. “Keep an eye out for escapees. I saw you bolt into the trees, and that little vermin in your arms made it nice and easy to follow. All that screaming…”
My wolf is clawing forward, livid, as a low growl burns at the back of my throat.
The man’s smile widens.
“Come quietly, and I won’t hurt her. Not one blonde hair. But if you fight—” He shrugs, voice turning sharp. “Then I’ll bleed you both, leaving just enough to keep you breathing. Apparently, you’re spoken for.”
Desperate, I reach for it again. That magic I weaved before, the strange energy that came to life when I needed it most. I search in vain, begging for it to return.
Once more, I’m met with nothing.
“I’m begging you,” I whisper, hating the crack in my thin voice, but hating more this is my last line of defense. Pleading for mercy from someone I already know isn’t capable of showing it. “Don’t do this.”
His laugh bends him in half, hands on his lean thighs as he looks up at me with something close to delight. “Begging,” he echoes. “Darling, don’t you know some of us live for that?”
He steps forward.
And the trees explode.
Something massive crashes through the brush to my left, too fast to track.
A blur of gray-and-black fur slams into the witch.
It hits him like a freight train, sending him flying several feet through the air.
He hits the forest floor with a sickening thud, the force knocking the air from his lungs.
Wheezing, he scrambles to roll, to get up, but a heavy paw pins him to the damp earth.
The wolf doesn’t wait. His jaw snaps down on the man’s jugular, claws ripping through his sternum like paper at the same time. Blood sprays. The start of a scream is swallowed by a sickening, wet choke.
I spin away, curling protectively around Ivey, shielding her from the violence and gore.
It was so fast, part of me doesn’t believe it actually happened. I don’t want to turn back. I half expect to find the man still standing there, that wicked, hungry gleam residing in his eyes.
But I have to look. I need to be sure.
Peeking over my shoulder, the witch is exactly where I last saw him—on his back, blood seeping into the soil beneath him. But the wolf…the wolf’s shifting. Dark fur melts away, revealing golden skin that stretches over thick, defined muscle. He rises from a crouch, tall and broad, his back to me.
Then his head turns.
Four silver scars that run along his temple into his hairline catch the dim light.
I know those scars—I know this man. Deaf, blind, and broken beyond repair, I would still recognize him anywhere.
Rennick.
He’s here.
My lungs stop working when he finally faces me, and for a moment, my mind refuses to believe it.
He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t even be close.
But it’s really him, standing there with his wide chest rising and falling fast with exertion, one of his hands and his chin are coated in fresh blood.
There’s a wild, bordering on feral, look gleaming in his gunmetal eyes.
My body reacts before my mind can catch up, my wolf pushing forward, brushing against my ribs in a sweep that’s equal parts need and relief.
Because he came.
Her mate came back.
I blink, but I still can’t seem to make sense of any of it.
Then he’s moving, rushing toward me with panic written across every line of his too handsome face. He doesn’t look angry. He doesn’t look frustrated. He looks terrified.
“Noa.” My name leaves his mouth on a breathless growl, not sharp or cruel, just rough with something I can’t name.
His hands are on me in the next breath, warm and solid as they cradle my face. His blood-covered thumb brushes over my cheekbone like he’s trying to calm himself with the feel of me. I flinch on instinct, nerves still frayed from everything that came before his arrival.
But that changes in a matter of seconds. His familiar touch and comforting scent wash over me. Vetiver. Leather. Mint. A combination that anchors me and calls to me on a cosmic level.
I break.
Everything in me softens at once. My weight leans into his. My eyes flutter closed of their own volition. Ivey’s cries grow distant, like they’re coming from somewhere far off and unreachable.
“Noa, baby, talk to me.” His voice cracks. “Are you hurt? I can’t...I can’t...fuck! There’s too much blood on you, I can’t tell if any of it is yours.”
I try to answer him, to say something, anything, but the words refuse to come. My tongue is suddenly too thick and heavy behind my teeth, my jaw refuses to cooperate. I don’t have strength to force my eyelids open either, they feel like they’re made of lead now.
Rennick’s hands tighten around my face, thumbs pressing in with just a bit more pressure as he gives me a single, careful shake. Like he thinks it might bring me back to him. I can feel the panic bleeding off him, but I can’t do anything about it. I can’t tell him I’m all right.
I don’t know if it’s shock setting in or something else entirely.
Maybe it’s just the adrenaline that’s kept me standing finally abandoning me, the fight slowly draining from my limbs now that my body senses Rennick is close.
Like some primal part of me still believes I’m safe with him.
That bond intact or not, he’ll step between me and whatever comes.
That he’ll protect me. And because of that, my body decides it can rest. That it can let go. That it doesn’t have to fight anymore.
But I can’t. Not yet.
“Ren...” I think I say it, but I can’t be sure at this point if it ever leaves my lips. “Take…take the baby.”
I don’t know if he hears me. I have no way of knowing if he understands because my knees give out beneath me and the world slips away.