Chapter 7
CADE
Leaving Solara feels wrong, but so did staying.
Bram woke something in me that never should have gone quiet.
A truth I’d been dancing around since the moment I stepped back onto pack land, pretending patience could replace conviction.
I couldn’t show up as that version of myself for another day—not for the pack and not for Rowan.
The elders were right about one thing.
The pack needs time.
So do I.
And I’m done wasting it on guilt.
I can’t undo the choices I made years ago. I can’t change the fallout or the silence that followed. But I also won’t spend the rest of my life paying for a past that no longer defines me. I’ve done enough penance. From here on out, I move forward, or I don’t move at all.
First, we find Jocelyn.
Then I’ll consider returning to Solara, and if the pack still doesn’t want me, I’ll deal with that when the time comes. But when I do walk back onto that land, it’ll be as the alpha I actually am. The one who puts his mate first and his pack close behind her.
No more disrespect. No more whispers.
They can give Rowan the chance I know she deserves and decide whether they want to follow me—or they can choose a new alpha.
Either way, I’m done shrinking.
The decision settles cleanly in my chest just as the SUV hums over uneven ground, the road thinning until it’s little more than a suggestion beneath the tires.
It’s been a day and a half since we left Solara.
Glacier Crest territory greets us without ceremony.
I should go straight to the alpha Brynn. As a council member, as a fellow alpha, it’s the proper move, but I don’t.
Instead, I settle for asking Elias to help.
Send Brynn a text, I tell him through the pack link. No details. Just tell her to keep her wolves away from The Keep tonight.
Are you sure that’s wise?
She had her chance to find Rowan’s mother here, I remind him. She didn’t. Now, it’s our turn.
Fair enough.
After nearly two days trapped in a vehicle with Iris Prescott offering unsolicited commentary on everything from my driving to my life choices, my tolerance for politics is gone.
So, best case, Brynn is already asleep for the evening, and by the time she realizes we’ve been here, we’ll already be long gone.
We’re close now, skirting the outer edges of their pack, heading toward the stretch of forest I’m hopeful the Glacier Crest wolves are still avoiding.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Rowan asks quietly from the passenger seat, her voice low but steady. “What if Brynn—”
“I asked Elias to text her,” I cut in, my thumb brushing slow circles over the back of her hand.
“She’s already sent patrols out here looking for your mother.
Either they didn’t look hard enough, or Malrik didn’t want them to succeed.
” My gaze stays fixed on the narrowing road. “This is ours to handle.”
Rowan nods, her attention drifting back to the trees as they close in around us. “As long as it doesn’t make things harder on you later.”
“It won’t,” I tell her without hesitation. “Brynn might have words for me, and I’ll listen, but even if she answers Elias and tells him no… It changes nothing. We’re doing this. If your mom is here, we’re bringing her home tonight.”
Her gaze returns to me, something warm and bright settling in her expression. “Thank you.”
“I won’t go back to the man you saw at the pack,” I promise her, my words quieter and meant just for her. “I won’t make myself smaller to please anyone else again.”
Rowan’s smile widens and it hurts my chest in the best way as she says, “I’m glad to hear it.”
Coming from the woman who once called me a murderer, the approval hits harder than I expect.
Our bond hums between us—steady and growing stronger by the day, even without the bite completed.
We’ve shared intimacy in our own way, but this connection runs deeper than skin.
I feel her pride like a pulse beneath my ribs.
Her certainty that no matter what waits for us ahead, I won’t let her face it alone, nor will she let me.
And the fact that she waited, held herself back from charging into danger to give me space to reclaim myself?
I won’t forget that.
I won’t waste it.
Both SUVs slow to a stop almost in unison, engines rumbling softly before I cut ours. The second vehicle follows suit, headlights disappearing until the forest presses in around us.
Darkness blankets the sky overhead, clouds swallowing what little moonlight there might have been. Beneath the trees, the shadows are worse—layered and heavy, like they’ve learned how to cling.
I step out first, boots crunching against iced soil that shouldn’t be frozen anymore.
“Well,” Liz says as she climbs out beside Rowan, duffel slung over her shoulder like she’s heading to a hostile takeover instead of a cursed forest, “at least it’s not snowing this time.”
Rowan exhales something that might be a laugh. “Setting the bar low, don’t you think?”
“Listen,” Liz replies, digging in her bag to reveal twin daggers, “I still have nightmares about my black toes from the last visit.”
With help from Marius, Archie hops out of the SUV and immediately expands into full protection mode, fur bristling, teeth bared as he sniffs the air. “Something smells wrong,” he mutters. “Like old blood and terrible choices.”
Iris steps out behind him, rolling her shoulders. “So, like last Tuesday.”
From the second vehicle, Elias exits first, already scanning the trees. Stephanie, Jonah, Caleb, Mara, and Dean follow, quiet and alert, hands flexing like they’re already braced for impact.
Twelve of us.
Enough if we’re smart.
I wait until everyone’s gathered before I speak. My voice comes out calm, controlled, carrying easily through the stillness. “We move together. No splitting up. No wandering. If you lose sight of the group, you stop and call out.”
Stephanie nods immediately. “Copy that.”
I almost didn’t want her to come, afraid she’d cause more drama than she would help, but even Elias mentioned that he’s been impressed with how reserved she’s been this time around.
“The Keep won’t be visible from the road,” I continue. “We’ll cut east and follow the dip in the land. It should funnel us toward the clearing.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Marius asks. “We spent days traversing these woods before and found nothing until Rowan freed herself.”
I glance at my mate, and she nods, answering him herself. “I sense that the spell to keep everyone confused and lost hasn’t been redone. But if anyone starts to feel off, then just say something. I should be able to fix it.”
Dean blinks at her. “You can undo magic?”
I forget that the pack didn’t even attempt to get to know her.
She grins. “Among other things.”
“If you want to shift, go ahead, but don’t run ahead,” I say, getting us back on track. “No one plays hero tonight. Not alone at least.”
My hand closes around Rowan’s, firm and grounding. She doesn’t pull away.
Which is good because even if she doesn’t sense a spell, the air here isn’t right. I don’t like how dark the woods are. My mate won’t be leaving my side.
Marius moves in on her other flank without needing instruction. Iris positions herself just behind Rowan, chin lifted, eyes sharp. Liz falls in behind Iris, and Archie takes up the rear next to her, massive and bristling, a living warning sign. The others spread out around us.
Caleb glances at Iris. “You sure you don’t want to stay with the cars?”
Iris turns her head slowly, adjusting her small pack that’s clipped around her waist. “Pup, I’ve survived vampires, alphas, more idiots than I care to count, and one bad marriage. I’ll manage a walk in the woods.”
Caleb raises his hands. “Just checking.”
I don’t blame him for doing so. It wasn’t my first choice to bring the crazy old lady with us, but Rowan said if we didn’t, she’d only make our lives harder. That I could believe, so I figured if Iris wanted to risk death, that was on her, not us.
I nod once. “Let’s move. Now.”
The forest swallows us the moment we step beneath the canopy.
At first glance, it almost looks normal.
Yet, the air is wrong. No birds. No insects. No wind. Every step sounds louder than it should, leaves cracking underfoot like dry bone.
My wolf paces restlessly, hackles raised.
I tighten my grip on Rowan’s hand without looking at her. “Stay close, please.”
She looks up at me with raised brows that say, “I already am.”
But I can’t help myself. As capable as I know she is, I don’t like bringing her back to the place that took her from me for two weeks and nearly killed me, Liz, Elias, and Archie. Maybe even Marius, but he never talked about what he went through out there.
The deeper we go, the clearer the signs become.
Dark streaks stain the bark of several trees—too obscure and deliberate to be sap. Liz crouches briefly to examine one, not touching it.
“Blood,” she says quietly. “Old. Vampiric.”
Jonah mutters a curse under his breath, then shifts into his wolf. Dean and Mara follow suit.
We find claw marks next—deep gouges raked into stone and wood alike, too precise for wolves, too controlled for anything feral. The scent shifts again, metallic and sharp, layered with something that makes my instincts scream trap.
Marius’s voice is low. “This place has had recent visitors.”
I scan the ground and feel my jaw tighten. Tracks cut through the soil, intersecting and disappearing as if deliberately erased. Movement without presence. Violence without noise.
Malrik hasn’t abandoned this place.
He’s curated it.
No one suggests turning back.
Not Liz. Not Elias. Not the wolves who followed me without hesitation.
And I don’t give the order.
Ahead, through the thinning trees, stone rises from the earth—dark, jagged, and wrong, like the land itself was split open and never healed.
The Keep.
It doesn’t sit on the forest floor so much as erupt from it.
Massive black stone blocks stack unevenly, fused together by age and something far older than mortar.
The walls loom high and severe, scarred by deep fractures that run like veins through the rock, faintly silvered where moonlight catches them.
Towers claw toward the sky at crooked angles, their silhouettes jagged against the clouds, as if even gravity had given up trying to keep them straight.
No windows glow. No torches burn.
The structure looks abandoned, but not neglected.
Like it’s been waiting.
I feel it in my chest, a low rumble that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with recognition. This place remembers violence. It remembers power. And it remembers her.
It looks exactly as I expect and nothing like it should.
I lift my fist, signaling a halt.
We stop as one.
The silence presses in harder here, dense enough to feel on my tongue. Even the forest seems to recoil, trees bowing away from the clearing as if unwilling to encroach any closer. The iron gates stand wide open, hinges intact, untouched by rust or decay.
Unguarded.
Inviting.
The kind of welcome that crawls under your skin and whispers that the trap has already been sprung.
I glance at Rowan then.
“Are you ready?” I ask her quietly.
She nods, moving forward just half a step. “Let’s find my mom.”
Marius growls from her other side, his hands turning to claws at the thought of getting his lost love back.
And just like that, everyone else moves, letting Rowan lead from here.
It twists something deep in my chest—pride, fear, awe all tangled together—but I don’t stop her. I know she can do this. I know she has to.
Because just as I’m certain that whatever waits inside this hell made of stone and silence isn’t finished with her yet…
My mate isn’t finished with it either.