Chapter 2 - Arthur
The axe bit into the frozen log with a crack that echoed through the trees.
Arthur wrenched it free, breath misting in the cold air.
The clearing around him was already ringed with neatly stacked wood, but he kept going, muscles flexing, shoulders tight.
As long as his hands were busy, his thoughts couldn’t drag him back to the same dark circles they’d been grinding through for weeks.
The northern woods stretched in all directions, stark and bare.
Birch and pine reached skeletal fingers up into a pale sky, the light thin and winter-weak even though it was only late autumn.
Snow had not yet fully settled, but frost clung to the roots of the trees and thickened up the distant mountains, hidden behind a bank of clouds.
He preferred being out here. Away from the compound, away from the constant pressure of eyes, of questions, of responsibilities. Out here, there was only the weight of the axe in his hands and the sting of cold air in his lungs.
Chop.
Breathe.
Chop.
“You know,” a voice drawled from behind him, “we have this fantastic thing these days called indoor heating.”
Arthur didn’t turn. “You volunteering to help, or just here to bother me?”
Chase stepped into the clearing, hands tucked in his coat pockets, dark hair falling into his eyes. His younger brother was broader than he’d been a year ago, muscle layered over his once-lean frame, but there was still something boyish in the way he carried himself. That easy, restless energy.
“Maybe a bit of both,” Chase said, “I’ve been looking for you for an hour.”
Arthur slammed the axe down again. The log cracked cleanly in two. “You found me.”
“Barely. You’re halfway up the mountains if you go much further.” Chase squinted at him. “Training ended ages ago. You’re supposed to be there.”
“I wasn’t needed.”
“You’re Alpha,” Chase pointed out. “You’re always needed.”
Arthur grunted, setting another log on the stump. “Not today.”
Chase watched him for a moment, then sighed. “Fine. If you won’t come to business, business will come to you.”
Arthur didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know. Not really. Because whatever it was, he already had a good guess, and he was very tired of being right.
“We’ve been talking with some of the Volkhov scouts,” Chase said, “who in turn have managed to open a line of communication with the Severney. Reports are coming in. It’s getting worse.”
Arthur’s grip tightened. The next swing came down a fraction too hard; splinters flew, stinging his cheek. “And?”
“Three more disappearances in the last month,” Chase said. “One human hunting party, one vampire scout, and a witch traveling alone. All near the old mining roads.”
Arthur’s shoulders tensed. “Hybrids?”
“The tracks were messy. But the descriptions match what we’ve heard from Voskresen and beyond.
Half-shifted forms, wrong scent, that…” Chase grimaced, searching for the right word.
“That madness in their eyes. And according to Severney, they weren’t just wandering this time. They’d set something up. An ambush.”
Arthur set the axe down slowly, feeling the old, familiar ache creep into his chest. He could still see it if he shut his eyes: the dark cleft of the Voskresen mines, the way the smell of rot and cold metal had hit him like a wall.
Hybrids sliding out of the dark, teeth gleaming, their movements wrong.
They’d thought they’d crippled the nest that day. Broken its spine.
They’d been wrong.
“They’re changing,” Chase went on, “getting smarter. More coordinated. Reports say it’s like they were being…directed.”
Arthur exhaled through his nose. “By what?”
“No one knows.” Chase shrugged one shoulder. “But he’s not the only one saying it. Julian Rook’s contacts in the north are all reporting similar patterns. Disappearances. Attacks. And—”
“You shouldn’t trust a word that comes out of Julian Rook’s mouth,” Arthur said with a dark scowl. “He’s not one of us.”
“He’s one of Dominic’s most trusted advisors. He…knows things.”
“Aye, he does. And Dominic never thinks to question him about it. Foolish.”
“It doesn’t mean the rumors are false.”
Arthur picked up the axe again, if only so he had something to hold that wasn’t his own temper. “Let Dominic chase shadows if he likes. Our borders are safe.”
“It won’t stay that way forever,” Chase said quietly.
Arthur didn’t answer. The truth of it sank like a stone.
They stood there for a moment, listening to the wind combing through the branches, the distant rumble of it over the Chilkat mountains.
“There’s more,” Chase said eventually.
“Of course there is.”
“It’s about Layla.”
Arthur’s grip slipped. The axe head thunked harmlessly into the snow at his feet.
For a heartbeat, the only sound was the faint patter of frost falling from a branch.
“Leave it,” Arthur said, too quickly. “Pack gossip doesn’t interest me.”
“This isn’t just gossip,” Chase insisted, “you know that.”
Arthur did know. He’d known for a long time. He’d just chosen, quite deliberately, to look the other way.
He’d watched Layla stand by Dominic’s side in The Anchor, hand resting over the swell of her stomach, laughter bright and sharp as she baited the Volkhov Alpha into smiles he hadn’t worn in years.
He’d watched her tend the archives, argue in council, stitch together frayed tempers with a well-placed barb or a quiet word.
He’d watched her brave a pack that had once spat on her name.
He’d liked her.
More than that, he trusted anyone who could make Dominic laugh like that. Anyone who could soften the edges of that hard, scarred male and still be entirely herself.
He also knew what some of Dominic’s wolves whispered when they thought no one could hear.
She was a witch.
A curse.
A poison.
He’d heard the words. He’d chosen not to believe them. Or, more accurately, he’d chosen to pretend they didn’t matter.
“Arthur,” Chase pressed, “you can’t ignore it forever. Not if—”
“I said leave it.”
Chase’s eyes flashed. “Fine. Then I’ll talk. You can cover your ears if you want.”
Arthur gave him a flat look. Chase pressed on anyway.
“She was there at Voskresen,” he said, “when the tunnel came down…we all saw it.”
“They were newly mated,” Arthur argued. “It was a blessing from Lunarion, nothing more.”
Chase grimaced, swallowing down his frustration. “But it’s not just that. She’s at the heart of it. Plotting with Julian. Disappearing and coming back with answers nobody could have discovered normally. Predicting things.”
Arthur said nothing. His heart beat a little too fast.
“You like her,” Chase said, softer now, “I know you do. But even you have to see that something isn’t…normal about her.”
Normal.
Nothing in Skymist had been normal in years.
Arthur rubbed a hand over his beard. In the Nordan pack, they didn’t talk about witches lightly.
They told stories instead, of blood on snow, of wolves screaming as their bones twisted, of packs brought low by a handful of women who’d gone half-mad with power.
The old grudge ran deep. Deeper than his father. Deeper than his father’s father.
He’d grown up on those stories.
And yet Layla Hawthorne had never quite fit the monsters of his childhood. Too human. Too stubborn. Too fiercely protective of the very people who whispered against her.
He’d made a choice, back when Dominic first started acting strangely around her.
When the scent of the bond had started creeping into the alpha’s shadow.
He’d stood in Dominic’s study and told him, plain as anything, to mate her.
To take the power Lunarion was offering and use it to strengthen his pack.
At the time, her being a witch had been nothing more than an idle rumor, a cruel taunt meant to drag her down.
Now?
“The rumors are getting more persistent,” Chase said quietly, “even some of ours are talking. She never shifted. And what happened at Voskresen…”
“If it’s true,” Arthur cut in, “then he has made his choice. And I’ll deal with the consequences as Alpha of the Nordan, not as some gossipy old crone chasing shadows.”
Chase shifted on his feet. “Arthur, this isn’t going away.”
Arthur opened his mouth to snap back when he caught a familiar scent on the wind: smoke, pine, and the faintest thread of Volkhov.
He turned.
A runner was sprinting through the trees, breath puffing, boots crunching on the hard ground.
“Alpha,” she called, slowing as she reached the clearing. She dipped her head to him, then to Chase. “Message from the Volkhov.”
Arthur’s shoulders bunched. “What now?”
“Dominic requests your presence at The Anchor this evening,” the girl said. “He says it’s urgent.”
Of course he does.
Arthur shared a flat, knowing look with his brother.
“Tell him I’ll be there,” he said.
***
The Anchor was already loud when Arthur arrived, lantern light spilling onto the snow-packed street.
Wolves crowded the long tables, voices rumbling, the tang of ale and roasted meat thick in the air.
The storm that had been pacing the horizon all afternoon finally broke, sleet hissing against the windows, but inside, the warmth was almost oppressive.
Arthur shouldered his way through the crowd, nodding at familiar faces. Volkhov and Nordan alike stepped aside for him without thinking, that old instinctive deference clearing a path. He’d walked this route a thousand times, to Dominic’s bar, to Dominic’s fire.
Tonight, the air felt different. Charged.
He spotted Layla first.
She stood by the hearth, as she so often did, one hand curled around a mug, the other resting absently over the curve of her belly.
Her dark hair caught the firelight in rich waves, eyes bright as she listened to something her brother Theodore was saying.
Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t complimentary; she rolled her eyes and swatted at his arm.
Theodore barked a laugh, the tension in his shoulders easing.