Chapter 23 Mary
MARY
The night feels wrong even before Tessa speaks.
The wind claws at the shutters, dragging long fingers across the walls, and my wolf presses against my skin like a heartbeat that isn’t mine, restless and raw.
I’ve been pacing the cabin for hours, unable to sit still, every part of me reaching toward the stretch of forest where Silas vanished.
Tessa comes quietly, her pale hair damp with snow, her eyes sharp with a light that isn’t fire. She doesn’t knock. She doesn’t need to. Her visions always come when they’re least welcome.
“I saw him,” she says, her voice low but carrying, as though she’s afraid the air itself might shatter.
I stop pacing. “Where?”
Her gaze flicks to mine, steady, unblinking. “Roman’s camp. He’s alive, but…” She trails off, her mouth tightening. “He won’t be for long if we wait.”
My wolf snarls violently, the sound tearing free of my throat, not loud but deep enough to rattle my chest. “Then we don’t wait.”
Darius appears in the doorway, drawn by the noise. His face is carved in shadow, his eyes green and sharp. “This isn’t your decision alone,” he says, his voice low but edged.
“Yes, it is,” I answer, stepping toward him, my wolf rising, steady and fierce. “He’s out there because of us. Because of me. I’m not sitting here while Roman tears him apart.”
“You don’t even know if it’s a trap,” he snaps back. “He could have walked back into Roman’s arms. He could already be dead. You lead our people into a slaughter, and for what? A fox?”
I close the distance between us until our chests almost touch, my voice calm but burning. “For someone who saved my life. For someone who turned on his master when no one else would. For someone who’s earned at least one chance.”
He stares at me a long moment, his jaw tight, his wolf pushing against mine. Then he exhales, the fight slipping from his shoulders. “If you go, you don’t go alone,” he says.
I nod once. “Fine. But I lead.”
By the time we move out, the ridge is awake, wolves shifting to flesh and back again, their bodies bristling with tension.
The night smells of pine and frost, but beneath it lies the iron tang of blood waiting to be spilled.
Tessa rides behind me on a pale mare, her hands steady on the reins, her eyes half-closed as she whispers directions pulled from visions.
Kaleigh and Angie flank our rear, their faces set, their magic coiled tight.
Darius runs in his wolf form ahead, a massive shadow cutting through the snow.
My wolf presses close to the surface, my senses sharpened until every sound cuts like glass—the snap of a twig, the whisper of snow falling from branches, the soft rasp of a fox’s trail somewhere far ahead. Silas’s scent lingers faint on the wind, faint but real, a thread I hold like lifeline.
We move fast, silent, slipping through the trees as though the forest itself hides us. The closer we get, the thicker the air becomes, heavy with the stink of fox and iron and magic gone sour. Roman’s camp glows faint between the pines, its fires burning low, its guards restless.
We stop in the clearing, crouched low, the snow wet and cold beneath our hands. Darius shifts back to human beside me, his breath steaming. “We get in, we get him, we get out,” he says. “No heroics.”
I nod, my eyes never leaving the camp. “No heroics,” I echo, though my wolf already knows it’s a lie.
Tessa’s voice cuts soft through the dark. “He’s in the east tent. Bound. Weak.” She closes her eyes, her hands trembling. “Roman is near, but distracted.”
“Good,” I murmur.
We move.
The first guard doesn’t even see me before my wolf takes him, my claws closing over his mouth, my knife sliding clean between his ribs.
He drops soundless into the snow. Darius and the others slip past, their movements swift and sure.
We weave through the camp like smoke, shadows between fires, ghosts among foxes.
The east tent looms ahead, its canvas dark, its edges marked with runes that stink of iron and blood. My wolf growls low, her hackles rising. Inside, I can smell him. Silas. His scent is faint, but it’s there: fox and sweat and blood, sharp enough to make my chest ache.
I pull the flap back and step inside.
He’s there.
He’s on his knees, chained to a post, his head bowed, his hair matted with blood, his skin pale and marked with fresh cuts. His fox flickers faint beneath his skin, but it’s weak, ragged, barely holding on. His chest rises shallow, each breath a struggle.
“Silas,” I whisper, my voice breaking.
His head lifts slow, his eyes finding mine. They’re dull, unfocused, but they still burn amber, still search me like he’s trying to make sure I’m real. His lips part, a sound tearing free, raw and broken. “Mary.”
I cross the tent in two strides, drop to my knees in front of him. My hands reach for the chains, my claws scraping against the iron. “We’re getting you out,” I say, my voice low but steady.
He shakes his head, his lips cracking with the effort. “Trap,” he rasps. “Go.”
My wolf snarls, the sound shaking the air. “I’m not leaving you.”
He tries to speak again, but his body gives, his head sagging. I catch him before he hits the ground, my arms sliding around his shoulders, pulling him close.
For a heartbeat, everything else fades—the camp, the danger, the cold. It’s just him and me, the smell of blood and fox and frost. I press my forehead to his, my voice trembling but sure. “You’re not a mistake,” I whisper. “You’re mine.”
His body shudders, a soft sound escaping his throat, something like a laugh, something like a sob. His fox flickers faint but brighter now, as though my words anchor him back.
Darius bursts through the flap, his voice low but urgent. “Mary. We have to move.”
I nod, my arms still wrapped around Silas. “Help me with him.”
Darius kneels, his hands gripping the chains. He rips them free with a grunt, iron snapping under his strength. Silas slumps against me, his body weak but still breathing, his eyes fluttering.
Kaleigh and Angie step inside, their magic already flowing, Kaleigh pressing her hands to Silas’s wounds, Angie murmuring soft to soothe the pain. Tessa stands at the entrance, her eyes distant, her voice sharp. “They’re coming.”
I haul Silas up, his arm around my shoulders, his weight heavy but welcome. “Stay with me,” I murmur against his ear. “Just stay with me.”
His lips move, barely a whisper. “Tried to hold… for you.”
My chest tightens, my wolf pressing close, her growl low and steady. “You did,” I whisper back. “You did.”
We slip from the tent, the night erupting around us—shouts, the clash of steel, the crack of magic. Foxes rush from the shadows, their eyes burning, their claws glinting in firelight. Wolves meet them head-on, the air thick with snarls and smoke.
Darius takes point, his claws flashing, his wolf tearing through the first line of guards.
Tessa moves like a blade, her visions guiding her strikes, her magic burning faint at her fingertips.
Angie and Kaleigh keep close, shielding Silas and me as we move through the chaos, their power wrapping us in a thin cocoon.
I focus on his weight against me, on the heat of his breath against my neck, on the steady beat of his heart. Every step we take is a fight, every breath a prayer my wolf howls into the night.
We break through the edge of camp, into the trees, the darkness swallowing us whole. The shouts fade behind us, replaced by the rush of blood in my ears, the crack of branches underfoot, the sharp scent of fox and wolf and frost.
Silas’s head rests against my shoulder, his eyes half-lidded but still open. “Mary,” he murmurs, his voice a ghost of sound.
“I’m here,” I whisper, tightening my grip. “I’m not letting go.”
His body shudders once more, then goes limp, but his heart still beats under my hand.
We run deeper into the forest, the night closing around us, carrying him home.