Chapter 19
CADE
My first pack run in over a decade. It’s like fire and electricity under my skin. The hum of energy from the gathered wolves crackles through the clearing, rising into the night air like heat off summer stone. Every heartbeat around me registers. Every breath. Every pulse of anticipation.
They’re waiting.
Not for a command.
For connection.
My link to each of them burns bright now, stronger than it ever was before. Not because I’m forcing it. Not because I’m gripping it too tightly.
But because I’m allowing it.
A flicker of guilt rolls through me, sharp and familiar, but I don’t let it root.
There’s no more living in the past. I can’t change the circumstances that led to my leaving the pack. I can’t undo the years I spent wandering, angry at ghosts.
All I can do is make sure everything from this moment forward is better than before.
Not only because the pack deserves that. But because I do.
There were too many years where hope was something I mocked. I lived just for the sake of surviving. It was bleak and pathetic.
I mean, I tried to tell you, my wolf mutters.
You do realize that by saying I was pathetic, it makes you just the same, right?
He scoffs inside my head. I’m a victim of circumstance. There isn’t a pathetic hair on my magnificent form.
I almost smile. Right.
I stand before the pack, just outside of the forest, with Rowan at my side. The moon is climbing, silver light catching on shifting shoulders and glinting eyes.
It’s nearly time to address them as their alpha. A couple hundred wolves are present. From pups barely steady on their feet to elders whose fur has long since silvered, and not even just from our immediate territory.
The smaller packs that are still technically within Solara, but run by other alphas, have also joined us. I don’t know most of them, but the fact that they showed up tells me all I need to know. Especially with how each of the four alphas present stepped forward when they arrived.
With lowered gazes and bared necks, they didn’t submit but acknowledged that their alpha has returned.
That lands deeper than any formal ceremony ever could.
Rowan’s presence beside me steadies something inside my chest. Her wolf is alert and watching.
“This is incredible,” she whispers, eyes never stopping their sweeping gazes.
“Just wait until we’re in wolf form.”
She squeezes my hand tighter as Elias approaches us.
“Everyone’s here now,” he confirms.
I nod, and when I walk toward the center of those gathered, I keep my mate, their luna, close at my side.
The clearing quiets as they notice my movements, and I don’t waste time. We’ve all waited long enough for this night.
“We’ve run separately for too many years.” My voice carries easily across the clearing. “Some of you grew up without me here. Some of you watched me leave. Some of you questioned whether I’d return.”
I don’t bother to soften the truth.
“I can’t change what’s already happened. But I can promise you this.” I pause, looking at as many of them as I can see. “You will never stand alone again.”
The words settle heavy and solid.
“We are Solara. Not divided by territory or pride or past mistakes.” A ripple moves through them. One of agreement and approval. “Tonight, we run not to prove anything to anyone outside these borders, but to reclaim the unity we’ve been without.”
It starts somewhere to my right—deep, steady—and spreads outward like a living thing.
The sound rolls through the clearing, rising until the pack starts shifting, bodies folding and reforming in waves of motion.
Fur catches the moonlight, claws press into dirt, and howls break into the cool night air.
Unified.
I don’t need to say anything more.
Rowan looks up at me, the golden hue of Solara blazing brightest in her kaleidoscope eyes. Pride. Fire. Home.
“In case you don’t already know this,” she says softly, “you belong here.”
The words feel stronger than any oath ever could.
I pull her closer, my hand firm at her waist. “I belong wherever you are.”
Our kiss is brief but charged. When she pulls back, there’s a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth.
“My wolf is ready,” she murmurs. “She doesn’t think yours can catch us.”
Challenge accepted, mine responds before I can get a word out.
His eagerness surges through me, bright and electric, filling my chest until I swear I could outrun the wind itself.
“We’ll see about that,” I tell her, stepping back. “You better shift fast, mate.”
But she’s already moving.
Bone and light and silver blur together, and then her breathtaking white-silver wolf stands before me, coat gleaming like moonlit frost. She shakes herself out, proud and powerful and utterly unbothered by the fact that she just dared my wolf to chase her.
And he wants her even more for it.
I follow suit, the shift snapping through me with effortless precision. Muscle stretches. Power settles into place. The forest sharpens.
Before my next breath, I’m on her heels. She takes off like lightning between the trees, and I give chase.
The pack floods in behind us—a living current of strength and instinct and belonging.
Euphoria unlike anything I’ve ever known swells through me. This is the life I always wanted but never allowed myself to imagine.
We have our mate. Our pack. Our home.
Nothing and no one, no matter how powerful or determined they might be, will take this from me again.
I was young before. I won’t make the same mistakes, and I won’t walk away from this life. Not without putting up the fight of my life.
With my wolves at my back and my mate blazing ahead of me, something ancient and unbreakable thrums through my veins.
We’re not scattered anymore.
We’re not even fractured.
We share something that won’t be easily broken now that it’s been claimed.
Not tonight, tomorrow, or even years from now.
The run ends much like it began. Every thread connecting me to the wolves hums bright and unbroken, woven tighter with every mile we covered beneath the moon. Breathes heave from chests, tails flick, and shoulders brush in passing dominance and playful challenge.
And Rowan.
She runs ahead of us, her shimmering coat cutting through the darkness like a blade of moonlight. Wolves naturally move closer to her path, not out of fear, but instinct. Recognition.
A lesser alpha would be intimidated with how the pack gravitated toward her tonight. Even they couldn’t deny her power. But not me.
My joy only intensified as I watched her settle into her rightful place as pack luna.
So, when we crest the final rise toward the clearing, and I catch the scent of another alpha waiting near the tree line—I decide the fun isn’t over just yet.
Payback for him hitting on our mate, my wolf rumbles.
I told Bram he’d pay for speaking so boldly to Rowan when we first met. Tonight feels like excellent timing.
A low growl begins in my chest, deliberate and controlled. I lower my head and charge straight for the Stoneclaw alpha.
The pack parts instinctively, and Rowan’s fear spikes through the bond, startled.
I send her reassurance immediately.
Bram’s eyes widen as he takes two steps back, hands rising. “Cade, brother. What’s—”
He doesn’t get to finish.
I slam into him with precise force, pinning him flat against the grass, claws digging into the earth on either side of his shoulders. My jaw hovers at his throat—not biting, just enough pressure to make a point.
The clearing goes still.
Bram’s chest rumbles beneath me. “If you think you can kill me so easily, you’re severely mistaken.”
My wolf drools deliberately, right down his cheek, then shakes out his jowls, dousing Bram with a week’s worth of saliva.
Only then do we pull back.
Bram sputters as I step off him, shaking his head like I’ve personally insulted his entire bloodline.
“Seriously?” he barks, scrambling to his feet. “Have you lost your damn mind?”
I shift back slowly, not rushing it. Letting the pack see the control in the motion.
“Just a little payback,” I say with a grin. “Maybe you’ll think twice about hitting on my mate in the future.”
Rowan is already back in her human form, breath quick, eyes flashing between us.
“I thought you were about to start a war between the packs,” she snaps, smacking my shoulder hard. “Don’t do that again.”
“As long as he doesn’t give me a reason to,” I murmur, brushing my thumb over her pulse in silent comfort.
The pack’s tension dissolves into laughter, amused and relieved.
Bram wipes his face dramatically with his shirt. “That was good,” he admits, extending his hand toward me. “And I can’t say I didn’t deserve it.”
I clasp his forearm. “You’re welcome.”
“Well played, brother.”
The respect between us is real.
“Not to sound disappointed by your visit,” I say, folding my arms loosely across my chest, “but what are you doing here?”
After a night like this, I’m not eager for bad news.
Bram’s gaze slides past me and lands somewhere behind my shoulder.
“For him.”
Marius steps forward, and the clearing shifts subtly at his movement. Wolves adjust, recognizing the importance of what this means.
Bram squares his stance, every inch the alpha of Stoneclaw.
“Did you think I wouldn’t come personally to release one of my wolves?” he asks, voice carrying with pride rather than accusation. “Especially one who should have been leading my pack.”
There’s no bitterness in it. Only respect.
His words pull something else into focus.
Rowan.
I should have done this before the run. I should have made her official before the pack took to the forest. So her wolf could feel the full strength of Solara binding to her.
But then again, we don’t always need ceremony to speak to one another.
Not when our bond speaks louder than most words ever could.
I glance at Marius and nod once. “Let’s make it happen.”
Jocelyn steps up beside him, having stayed back with the others, and she slides her hand into his like it’s always belonged there. She whispers something about family, and the smile that breaks across Marius’s face is brighter than anything I’ve seen from him yet.