Chapter 35
Nova
Iwake before the sun does.
The darkness is nearly complete in Dane’s cabin, just a faint gray outline around the shutters hinting at dawn’s approach. His arm weighs across my waist, heavy and possessive even in sleep. His breathing remains deep and even against my neck.
My body aches—bruises forming on my hips where his fingers dug in, a pleasant soreness between my thighs. But my mind is already mapping exits, calculating timing, replaying what I felt during the ritual.
It wasn’t just Faelan’s signature I caught. It was intent. Direction. A psychic tripwire waiting to snap when Dane leads the pack in at dawn.
I slide my gaze to Dane’s face. Sleep softens nothing about him. His jaw remains set, brows slightly furrowed like he’s solving problems even in dreams. A small scar cuts through his right eyebrow that I never noticed before.
I don’t wake him. Not because last night meant nothing. Because it meant too much.
My movements are smooth as I ease from under his arm. The floor is cold beneath my feet. I dress quickly, silently—underwear, jeans, thermal shirt, and jacket. The routine is familiar: weapons check, boots laced tight, and mental inventory of what I carry.
I secure my knife at my hip, another at my ankle. Double-check the pouch Lyanna gave me—herbs to mask my scent signature and ground quartz to disrupt tracking spells.
Outside, frost crunches under my boots. The air smells like pine sap and cold mountain air. The compound sits quietly, most of the pack still sleeping before the mission. No one sees me cross between the shadows of the cabins toward the eastern boundary.
I pause at the treeline, looking back at Dane’s cabin. The window of his bedroom faces this direction. In the growing light, I can almost imagine him still there, sheets tangled around his waist, hand reaching for a warmth that’s already gone.
I need to reach the convergence point before the pack mobilizes. Need to trigger the trap on my terms, not Faelan’s. Need to use what’s already inside me—that magical residue that nearly burned me out—to find the weak point.
I turn east and slip into the trees, leaving no trail, moving fast and light, keeping my breathing steady.
The forest opens to me differently than it does to most wolves. They track with their noses and ears. I track with the hum of resonance beneath my skin. Each step takes me closer to what I’m hunting.
Faelan left trails through this forest. Not physical prints. But tears in reality, hairline fractures in what should be.
Behind me, the bond with Dane stretches.
It doesn’t hurt. Doesn’t tug. It just exists, a steady presence I’m acutely aware of with each mile I put between us.
For the first time, I don’t try to explain it away or call it something smaller.
I could reach back through it if I wanted.
Feel his rage when he wakes to cold sheets. But I don’t.
The forest darkens as I press deeper. Not from lack of light.
The dawn is breaking overhead. But from the concentration of something else.
Magic thickens here, coating the air like oil on water.
My steps slow as I spot the first visible anomaly: a stream running backward for three feet before correcting itself.
A tree with bark that ripples when nothing touches it.
The frayed edges of reality.
I pause to secure Lyanna’s protections. The pouch of herbs crushed between my fingers releases a sharp, clean scent that covers my own. I dust ground quartz across my forearms, watching it absorb into my skin with a faint shimmer.
Last night crashes back unexpectedly. Dane’s hands on my skin. His mouth at my throat. The way he said my name like it was enough to anchor him through a storm.
He knew what I was planning. Not explicitly. Not in words. But he knew.
And he let me go.
Not because he didn’t care. Because he trusted me to come back.
That truth cuts deeper than rejection ever could. It demands something of me I’m not sure I know how to give.
I push forward, refocusing. The trees have begun to hum with held energy. Vibrating at a frequency just below hearing. I can feel it in my teeth, in the back of my skull. The convergence point is close.
When I reach the clearing, I know immediately it’s wrong. Too symmetrical. Too still. No birds call here. No insects buzz. The air hangs unnaturally thick, as if paused mid-breath.
It’s a stage setting, not a natural space. The perfect circle of trees. The too-even spacing. The ground free of debris where it should be littered with pine needles and leaves.
I draw the blade from my thigh holster, testing its weight in my palm. The silver edge catches what little sunlight filters through the canopy.
Trap or not, I’m walking in. On my terms. With my eyes open.
If Faelan wants to play with magic and manipulation, he’ll learn I’m not the prey he expected. I’m the predator who tracked him to his own door.
I step into the clearing, and the air thickens in my lungs like I’m breathing underwater. The silence presses against my eardrums.
The trees form a perfect circle around me, spaced at identical intervals. Too perfect. The ground beneath my feet is bare earth, swept clean of pine needles and fallen leaves. Sanitized. Prepared.
My skin prickles. Magic hangs in the air, not flowing but suspended, like time has paused mid-breath.
That’s when I see it. Carved into a flat stone at the center of the clearing: a symbol. Not quite a rune, not quite a sigil. Knotwork etched into the rock itself, ancient and cold. The lines twist in impossible angles, folding back on themselves in ways that make my eyes want to slide away.
I know what it is before I reach it. The same pattern I’ve been drawing obsessively since I came back from the Fade—the one that matches the silvery mark on my wrist. The mark that appeared weeks before I ever entered that realm, that I don’t remember getting, that’s only grown stronger since.
My fingers hover over the etched stone. I should back away. Should call for backup. Should do anything but touch it.
I press my palm against the cold surface.
The scar reacts when I touch it. No dramatic burning, just a quick pulse. Magic responds to magic; simple as that. The air shifts around my fingers, a reaction to whatever’s in my blood.
My stomach drops. “Shit.”
This was never random. Faelan didn’t find me.
He marked me.
The realization hits like ice water. Every step I thought was mine was guided. Every trail I tracked was already laid. The scar wasn’t an accident or battle damage. It was a key. And I walked right into the lock.
Before I can pull away, the magic in the clearing shifts. The air vibrates with a subtle hum, and something brushes against my consciousness—not a voice, not a touch. A resonance.
I strain my senses, trying to understand what I’m feeling. The presences aren’t physically here, but their essence lingers, suspended in the magic like insects in amber. I can feel their confusion, their drifting awareness.
The missing wolves. The hikers from the trails.
They’re alive. Suspended. Caught.
Just as I suspected.
I focus harder, trying to separate the threads of consciousness. Three ... No, five. Wait—
Eleven. Not five.
Eleven distinct patterns. Three I recognize immediately: Jensen, Kira, Tomas—Ash Hollow’s missing wolves.
Two humans. Must be Jessica Chen and Mark Sullivan.
But six others I don’t know. Victims from outside Ash Hollow territory, their signatures faint and unfamiliar.
Some bright and sharp, others softer and muted.
None in pain. None terrified. They all exist in a strange, gentle limbo.
He’s been doing this longer than we thought. Taking victims from multiple territories, building his collection systematically.
Jensen’s presence flickers strongest among the Ash Hollow wolves—young, protective instincts still firing even in suspension.
Kira and Tomas’s patterns intertwine, packmates to the end.
Jessica’s consciousness pulses with scientific curiosity even here, while Mark’s radiates steady concern for her safety.
All of them trapped. All of them waiting for rescue they don’t know is coming.
This isn’t a killing ground. It’s a holding pen. A collection point.
The implications turn my blood cold. Faelan isn’t destroying his victims. He’s harvesting them. Storing them for something worse than death.
I pull my hand back from the stone, breaking contact. The resonance fades but doesn’t disappear completely. Now that I’ve felt them, I can’t unfeel their presence.
I check the position of the sun through the trees. The pack will be mobilizing soon. Dane will have discovered I’m gone. He’ll come.
I draw my knife and mark the stone with a quick slash.
Then I move to the edge of the clearing to wait.
I steady my breathing. In. Out. Five counts each. My pulse settles into a calculated rhythm.
The forest remains suspended in that unnatural stillness, like everything’s holding its breath. I force myself to do the same—to become part of this frozen moment rather than fight against it.
I push up my sleeve and stare at the silvery mark on the inside of my wrist.
It appeared weeks ago—I still don’t remember getting it. Just woke up one morning and it was there, faint and easily ignored. After the Fade, it became impossible to ignore. Raised now, the edges iridescent, pulsing with a rhythm that matches my heartbeat.
Here, in this clearing, the pulse intensifies. Responding to something unseen. My skin prickles.
It didn’t.
Now it’s raised and pale, the edges slightly iridescent. And here, in this clearing, it starts to pulse. Slow. Rhythmic. Responding to something unseen. My skin prickles.
I press my thumb to it. The heat intensifies—still no pain, just pressure. Like something inside it is waiting.
“You made me a key,” I whisper. “But keys open doors from both sides.”
That’s what Faelan miscalculated. He didn’t choose me. He programmed me. Assumed I’d act according to plan.
But tools fight back.
And weapons—
Weapons like me choose how they cut.
I scan the clearing again, seeing it with new eyes. The symmetry isn’t just unnatural—it’s intentional. Every tree positioned to channel energy. The bare earth swept clean for maximum conductivity. The stone at the center—not just a marker but a focus point.
I close my eyes, reaching out with that part of me that’s always been different. The presences I sensed earlier pulse steadily in the suspended magic.
I brush against one consciousness—Kira, I think. Female, young. Her mind isn’t panicked or fighting. It’s drifting, peaceful. Drugged almost. Contained in a gentle prison that feels like a dream.
My stomach turns.
I drop my hand, severing the connection. My skin crawls with the wrongness of it. Whatever Faelan is building, these captives are fuel for something bigger. Something worse than simple death.
My thoughts turn to Dane. Not to his hands on my skin or his breath against my neck. To his tactical mind. His ruthless clarity. He needs to see this—not just hear about it. Needs to understand what we’re truly facing.
He’ll be here soon. He’ll track me. Find me. And when he does, I won’t be shaking or crying or lost.
I’ll be armed with truth.
I don’t regret coming alone. This was something I needed to confirm without interference, without the pack’s energy clouding what I sensed. But I don’t want to face what comes next by myself either.
I move to the edge of the clearing, positioning myself between two perfectly aligned pines. My knife is in my hand, loose and ready. My body is calm, centered. Alert.
Waiting.