Chapter 17 - Dani #2
Nordan clustered opposite, Arthur at their head, Chase at his right, Fenred a step back, jaw clenched. Some of the hunters who’d eyed Dani with discomfort that morning stood behind him, faces shuttered.
The Severney were a darker smear near the tree line, Rory tall and still, Kiara at his shoulder, dark eyes sharp as knives. Their wolves radiated a leashed, cold readiness, like snow just waiting to slide.
Leonid and the rest of the Volkhov wolves stood some distance from them, their eyes keen yet wary of the snarling wolves outnumbering them.
On a low rock near the edge of the clearing, the vampire emissary sat as if at the theatre, wrapped in a long dark coat, pale face unreadable. A small cluster of attendants stood behind him, perfectly still.
Witches gathered on the slope between stones, Salem in one group, nomads and smaller covens, and Juneau’s witches keeping a half-step back. Lavinia took the central position, High Sister mantle invisible but obvious.
Dani walked up with her sisters, skirts brushing frozen grass. She felt eyes on her, wolves tracking, witches estimating.
Her gaze snagged on Arthur’s.
It hit like a physical touch. The bond thrummed, catching on the bruise of their argument like fingers on a sore tooth.
He looked tired. Jaw shadowed with stubble, hair tied back. The mark she’d left on his neck peeked above his collar, dark and deliberate.
Anger flared in his eyes when he saw her standing with Salem. Not at her. At himself, she thought suddenly. For not having given her a safe enough place amongst his wolves.
Still. It stung.
She paused at the edge of the witches’ knot.
Between them and the Nordan stretched a strip of neutral ground. She could step across. Take a place at his side, luna to alpha, in full view of every pack and coven.
Her feet itched.
She thought of Edith’s warning. Of Lavinia’s trust. Of the Salem girls watching her with a mix of expectation and wariness. Of Aurelia back in the lodge, caught between worlds that would happily tear each other apart.
She stepped into the circle of her sisters.
Arthur’s jaw tightened. He looked away first.
A small, mean part of her was glad.
Lavinia’s hand brushed her shoulder in silent acknowledgment. Dani found Edith on her other side. Together, they faced the clearing.
Dominic stepped forward.
“Thank you for meeting here today,” he said. His voice carried easily, cold air thinning it to a blade. “I won’t waste time. We all know why we’re here. Hybrids. New threats. We settle how we stand, or we walk out of here and go to war alone.”
“You mean we settle how we kneel,” Leonid drawled, lounging near the vampire like the whole thing bored him. His coat was immaculate; his eyes glittered cruelly. “To Volkhov. To you.”
A growl rippled through Dominic’s wolves. Layla’s fingers tightened on his arm. Dominic’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t take the bait.
“Don’t try and start something just for the hell of it,” Dominic growled, “you know as well as I do that this isn’t some bid for power.”
Leonid shrugged, unapologetic. “Forgive me for assuming the worst when it comes to you, cousin.”
“Didn’t even make it two minutes,” Lavinia muttered.
“Enough,” Arthur rumbled, and something tugged low in Dani’s gut at the way the clearing fell silent, dipping their heads in respect. “We focus on the hybrids. We leave any petty grudges aside. Deal?”
“Deal,” Lavinia called, her voice ringing clear as a bell. The wolves turned towards the witches in interest, some more curious, some clearly unsettled.
Alex scoffed, and Dani flinched at the iron that passed over Arthur’s face. “I think our history is more than a petty grudge, don’t you think? Witch?”
Arthur snarled, but Alex seemed unbothered. Dani swallowed, throat suddenly dry.
“I’m willing to set it aside for the greater good,” Lavinia said, her voice like ice, “as are many others here.”
There were a few murmured assents from the Volkhov and Severney. The Volnoye and the vampires watched with interest as the Nordan split became more obvious.
“Greater good,” Alex scoffed. “You ask me, the greater good would have been wiping your kind from the face of the earth.”
“Nobody did ask you,” Lavinia responded.
“Do you want to muzzle your pup, Arthur?” Leonid called in wicked delight. “His yapping is rather tiresome.”
“Shut your mouth, you treacherous shit,” Alex snarled, whirling on him.
“Bold words from a male who threatens treason against his own alpha,” Julian’s voice cut across the stone, dark and heavy. “Need I remind you of our warning?”
“Go to hell, you demon.”
“Silence,” Dominic roared, stepping forward.
The atmosphere had thickened, tense, and uncomfortable.
It pressed in against Dani from all sides, and she fought not to choke on it.
Even growing up amongst the pack, amongst shifters, she’d never gotten fully used to the oppressive blanket of so many of them on a knife’s edge.
She wanted Arthur, she realized with a start.
She wanted to run to him, to stand beside him, to feel his strength at her back.
The weight of his gaze hung heaviest of all, and she had to physically restrain herself from looking up.
She didn’t trust herself to stay with her sisters if she did meet his eye.
“This is what they want,” Dominic continued, icy eyes cutting, “they want us fractured. Arguing. As likely to kill each other as we are to face them.”
“Come on, Dominic,” Leonid said, “even if we’re arguing now, it’s not like it’ll matter when we actually go into battle. Yes, there may be an invisible hand guiding them, but they’re still mindless rabid beasts. Wild animals.”
“And dangerous,” Dominic fired back. “It takes three of our wolves to take down one of those monsters. We need every advantage we can get.”
Before anyone could spit back, Rory spoke up from the tree line. “You’re half right,” he said.
His voice was soft but carried. Heads turned.
Rory stepped fully into the clearing, Severney wolves easing with him like a shadow. He inclined his head first to Dominic, then to Arthur, then to Lavinia.
“They are monsters. Ten-foot beasts. But that’s not all.” He tipped his head toward Kiara.
The witch at his shoulder stepped forward.
Dani felt rather than saw witches straighten around her.
“Most of you know the lore,” Kiara said without flourish. “Hybrids smell like death. Move wrong. You may not know that our magic around them warps and catches easily. They’re beasts. Easy to spot if you’re paying attention.”
Alex folded his arms. “We’ve all faced them. We know the rules. What to look out for.”
“Then you can forget them,” Kiara said, “or at least stop trusting them to save you.”
She scanned the circle, gaze passing briefly over Dani with a glint.
“Three months ago,” Kiara went on, “Severney patrol picked up a hybrid trail near the mountains. Scorch marks. Blood. The usual. We followed it to a logging camp just outside our border.”
She paused.
“We walked in expecting the normal monsters,” she said. “We found a foreman, four workers, and three teenagers on a school tour, all alive. Three of them were shifters. No odd scents. No wards reacting. Nothing.”
“So you left,” Alex said with bored contempt, “riveting tale.”
Kiara smiled, small and sharp. “We would have,” she said, “if not for one thing.” She lifted her hand, sparks of magic skittering over her fingers. “When I brushed my magic over the camp, it slid off three of the workers like oil off glass. No energy. No snag. Just…nothing.”
Dani’s neck prickled.
“Magic always catches on something,” Kiara said, “on living things. On dead things. Organic matter. Gaia sees all in her domain. But these people were blanks. They smelled human. Had heartbeats. But their souls were…wrong. Hollow.”
Dominic’s gaze sharpened. Layla’s hand dropped from his arm, resting on her own belly instead, protective.
“We pushed,” Kiara said, “they laughed. Called us superstitious. They were just ordinary people, a tiny settlement of shifters and humans. Not unlike a million others we’ve seen before.”
She looked at Arthur now. At Alex. At the witches.
“Ten minutes later, when we were almost off the site, one of my runes went off,” she said, “a small one. I’d left it on the logging road as a tripwire. It pinged footsteps. They were following us.”
Dani’s fingers dug into her own palms.
“We circled back,” Kiara said. “Made it look like we were lost. The three workers came to help. Up close, like before, one smelled human, and two smelled like shifters. My wolves couldn’t tell a single difference.
” She tapped her temple. “But the wards did. They crawled. Like spiders on skin. As far as my magic was concerned, only my men and I stood on that road.”
Julian’s face had gone very still. Lavinia’s eyes were flint.
“We pushed again,” Kiara said, “they didn’t like that.”
She smiled without humor.
“Hybrids are learning,” she said, “sure, they have their weaknesses. Open flames, prolonged starvation, and a certain lack of subtlety; all things we know about. But now they’ve found ways to hide their scent.
To sit under wards without tripping them.
To pass as human. To pass as shifters. To live among us, undetected.
After all, in a crowd, not even a witch could sense their absence of… soul.”
She let that sink in. Seconds ticked by, each one loud in Dani’s pulse.
“So no,” Kiara finished softly. “You can’t trust your nose. Or your stories. If you’re still looking for monsters with glowing eyes and claws and teeth, you’re already dead. The things hunting us now can look like the man who sells you coffee in the morning.”
The clearing seemed to tilt, just a fraction.
Dani’s mind flashed, unbidden, to the witches who’d left in the night with notes. To all the strangers in their midst. To Aurelia in the lodge, surrounded by children and minders and—
Her stomach lurched.
“Hybrids can appear human, can appear shifter,” she said aloud, before she could stop herself.
Kiara’s eyes cut to her. Their gazes locked.
“Yes, Luna,” Kiara said. “They can.”