Chapter 4
SABLE
The hut wasn’t much. Made of scrap wood with a roof that leaked when it rained too hard, and a single window to let in a few rays of sun, its best quality was that it was safe.
Tucked into the far edge of Heraclid land, it offered the kind of quiet I hadn’t known in years.
No pack politics, no prying eyes. Just the trees, my thoughts, and the new ache that wouldn’t leave.
It had only gotten worse over the past three days since Rhys’s lips touched mine.
I sat cross-legged on the rough wooden floor, my back against the wall as I tried to focus.
My injury wasn’t visible, but I could feel it—a molten throb deep in my core, like I’d swallowed boiling water and it had settled there to burn me from the inside out.
Every time I moved, it flared, a reminder of that kiss, that moment, that horrid mistake.
The bowl in front of me glinted dully in the morning light that spilled through the gaps in the walls.
Inside the bowl, the water was still, a single thread of silver magic curling through it like smoke.
My fingers hovered above the surface, shaking with the effort of control.
Silver magic wasn’t my specialty—it was delicate, finicky, and never liked me much, especially given my origins.
But when it worked, it really worked. And I was desperate.
“Come on,” I muttered, pressing my palms together. I focused on the heat in my core, trying to picture it easing, draining, cooling. The magic in the bowl trembled, responding to my intent—or maybe mocking it. Hard to tell.
A sharp flare of pain made me wince, and I lost my concentration. The thread of silver snapped, dissipating into the air with a faint hiss. I cursed under my breath, grabbing the edge of the bowl to steady myself as the pain took hold, which of course sent it flying.
The throbbing wasn’t going anywhere.
I’d hoped that when I touched him, I could finally put this deranged pull to bed. Wrong.
I stared at the bowl, my hands trembling with the frustration bubbling inside me. The magic should have worked. It had to work. But no matter how hard I tried, the throbbing stayed, simmering just beneath the surface like a fire I couldn’t put out.
Why? Why wasn’t it working?
My power had never been this stubborn before.
I could see the heart of someone with a single touch—peer into their deepest truths, the ones they hid from themselves.
It wasn’t prophetic or grand, like Eve’s visions.
No dramatic glimpses of the future or the Moon Goddess whispering in my ear.
It was quiet. Subtle. A thread running beneath the surface, unnoticed unless I pulled it.
Subtle or not, it had saved my skin more times than I could count.
Until now.
When I’d touched Rhys, all I saw was black.
And that scared me to death. Whatever curse was inside Orion, it was insidious, and I wanted nothing to do with it.
I hadn’t intended to use my power to drain his energy, but when I saw that blackness, it reminded me too much of where I’d seen it before. And I panicked.
His brothers held the same bleak darkness in their hearts too.
I pressed my palms to my thighs, willing the burn in my core to subside. It didn’t. If anything, it flared hotter.
This was nothing like what fated mates were supposed to be. I knew it because I’d seen Eve’s fated mate bond before she did.
The first time I saw Eve, she had her knees up as she sat on a step of the alpha estate house, just a kid, looking as lost as I’d ever seen anyone.
I was at least six years older than she was.
I scented she was Crux like me right away, though I was still a child myself.
Eve had been raised by the nannies and staff of Alpha Grayson.
I’d had my mother—before she was killed—and because of her, I had all the Crux lore alive in my veins.
It made sense that Eve would be a lost one. Her mother was the most hunted and most feared of Crux wolves. Most packs denied we still existed.
Eve’s mother had been our alpha.
Eve didn’t know she was the alpha’s daughter, for her own safety. That was why I’d watched over her, used silver magic any time I sensed she was injured by that wretched beast, Damian. And it was why I intervened when opportunities arose for me to silently push her out of harm’s way.
Lost ones like Eve were fragile, and being the alpha’s daughter gave her oracle powers beyond what was normal—which was as good as having a target painted on her back.
The lost ones had come from the Crux pack’s elite oracle wolves and were the ones the underground packs preyed on most. The lost ones were the most powerful among the Crux, if they survived long enough to realize it.
All Crux, including the lost ones, lived in secret, for their own good. As it was, the Heraclids knew Eve had oracle abilities. If they had known about her heritage in Crux, it could have gone very, very badly. I had to protect Eve from that risk.
I was the Crux head enforcer, after all.
So, when I’d bumped into Eve—intentionally—on Heraclid lands, I’d seen Logan in her heart. That was long before they’d met, and I knew even then that I had a role to play in bringing them together.
“Yikes, silver healing? What have you done now, Mama Sabe?”
Astrid’s voice came from the doorway, dry and teasing, the way it always was when she caught me doing something I’d rather keep hidden—which was more often than I’d like.
I glanced up to find her leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, a smirk tugging at her lips.
The morning light filtered through her unruly blond hair, making her look like a mischievous forest sprite.
She wasn’t my biological daughter, but she gave me enough attitude that I knew exactly what mothering a teenager was like.
“Nice to see you, too,” I said, setting the bowl upright again. “Shouldn’t you be off terrorizing squirrels or something?”
She stepped inside, her sharp blue eyes immediately locking onto me with a focus that was too perceptive for someone her age.
The girl was barely eighteen, with the soul of an elder, despite her adolescent cheekiness.
Crux power ran deep in her, and I couldn’t wait for the day when she’d be able to release it.
Saving her from the clutches of those sick shifter traffickers when she was a small thing was one of my favorite memories.
But she’d had nowhere else to go, no host pack or Crux family that she knew of, so she came home with me.
“What’s with the sass, Sable? You only get like this when you’re hurt. ”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly, brushing her off with a wave of my hand. “Just practicing some silver work. Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Uh-huh.” Astrid dropped to a crouch in front of me, her smirk fading into a more serious expression. “Let me see.”
“Astrid—”
“Save it,” she said. “You know I don’t buy that ‘I’m fine’ crap. You’re about as subtle as a grizzly when something’s wrong.”
I huffed, leaning back against the wall as she reached out, her hands hovering just above my skin.
Her gaze flickered with the faint golden glow of her wolf as she started her work.
Unlike silver magic, Astrid’s gifts didn’t deal with blood and flesh.
It went deeper, brushing against the parts of you that didn’t scar over so easily.
It was invasive, almost uncomfortable, and, worst of all, she was always right.
“Could you not use your soul-scanning superpowers when I’m busy trying to look cool?” I muttered.
Astrid snorted, but her concentration didn’t waver. “Cool? Please. You’re sitting in a leaky shack playing with silver like some low-budget witch. Nobody’s mistaking you for cool.”
“Thanks for the pep talk.”
“You’re welcome.” Her brow furrowed, the glow in her eyes brightening. “Sable… you know as well as I do that this isn’t poison ivy or whatever bullshit you were about to throw at me.”
“Watch your language.” I sighed and looked away, focusing on a knot in the wooden wall. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“That’s what you always say,” Astrid murmured. “Until you can’t.”
The words settled between us. She’d seen me at my worst, more times than I cared to count, which was how she’d discovered she had healing abilities wrapped up with her ability to read someone’s emotions.
My run-ins with other packs had left invisible scars that only Astrid could sense.
I’d seen what enemies had done to our Crux girls, and the despair of it was enough to send anyone mad.
I sighed, reaching out to ruffle her hair. “I’ll be fine, okay? Don’t worry so much.”
Astrid swatted my hand away, a faint smile creeping back onto her face. “Someone has to. You’re hopeless on your own.”
I couldn’t help but smile back. Astrid knew all I did for Crux pack and that I was anything but hopeless… except when it came to taking care of myself. “Yeah, yeah. Now go find those squirrels.”
She laughed, a sound that somehow made the burn in my chest just a little more bearable. Until she spoke her next words.
“Sable, can we please go live with the Orions now?”
“You know we can’t.”
Astrid sat down in front of me and crossed her legs. “Why not?” she asked, more demanding than I was used to hearing from her. “Why can’t we go to the Orions? They’ve already got Heraclids there. It’s not like we’d stand out any more than we already do.”
I sighed, dragging a hand through my hair. “I’m at risk there. And if I’m at risk, you are too.”
“You’ve been saying that for years. I know you’ve been looking out for Eve, and she seems to be doing perfectly fine there.
” My mouth dropped open in spite of myself.
“Yeah, you’re not so good at hiding things from me as you think.
And now she’s Alpha Logan’s mate. Just tell her what you’ve done for her and boom, we’ll practically be royalty over there. ”
I didn’t know how to tell her I had made myself appear like Eve’s enemy in order to create a safe space around her. And people don’t forget when you’ve been their enemy. Especially when their wolves get involved.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Of course it’s not.” Astrid’s voice rose. “It’s never that simple with you. You always have some reason, some excuse, to stay hidden. Ever since the packs combined, we’ve been in this hole, living like escaped criminals. But we aren’t, Sable, and it’s time we live as the wolves we are.”
I blinked, surprised by the edge in her voice. She rarely challenged me like this, but when she did, it was like looking at a younger version of myself. I knew the anger in her.
“Tell me the truth, Sable. Why? Why can’t we live with the Orions?”
Astrid’s question hung in the air. Why couldn’t we just go to the Orions? Why couldn’t I let her have the safety and comfort she deserved? It wasn’t like I hadn’t asked myself the same thing a hundred times before.
The truth was, I had no idea what safety looked like anymore. Not for someone like me and not for someone like Astrid.
For ten years, I’d lived with one purpose: find the Crux wolves, save them, keep them hidden. Most Shadow Moon packs pretended Crux didn’t exist anymore, like our bloodline was a bedtime story for pups.
I knew better. My mother had made sure of that before the fates took her from me.
The Crux wolves were out there, scattered and broken, hiding in plain sight or buried under the weight of lies they didn’t even know they carried. And I was going to find every last one of them and deliver them home.
That was the dream, anyway, and I would do everything in my power to make it so until I breathed my last breath.
The packs didn’t make it easy. Some of them knew they were girls with strange abilities, pups who didn’t fit the mold.
Others just saw potential, something they could use or break as they saw fit, like Eve.
It didn’t matter. They all risked ending up the same way, locked in rooms or cages or worse, if I couldn’t save them and get them into our Crux network.
Just like Eve—strung up by Grayson, forced to marry Damian, oracle abilities twisted to one pack’s alpha desires.
And Eve wasn’t just any Crux. She was the alpha’s daughter. The minute I scented her, I knew I had been brought to Heraclid pack to protect her.
I couldn’t let anyone know about it, and it had to be me. No one else could save her.
No one else would.
And now she was rightly with the Orions. It made quite the riddle.
The Orions might have been safe for now, but safety was temporary.
Fragile. If I brought Astrid there, what would happen when the truth came out?
When they realized what she was—or what I was?
The Crux weren’t just wolves. We were weapons, created in secrets and shadows, and people didn’t like weapons they couldn’t control.
I couldn’t risk it. Not for me, not for Astrid, and not for the others.
No, we weren’t going to the Orions. Not yet. Not until I knew, without a doubt, that they’d fight for us as fiercely as I fought for Eve. Until then, I’d keep doing what I’d always done.
Keep finding the Crux. Save them. Protect them.
That was who I was, who I’d always been.
Astrid was quiet for a long moment. Then, her sharp blue eyes searched mine. “I know you want to protect me. But keeping me here, isolated from everyone and everything… there’s no future in that.” She touched my arm. “You’ve done your job, Sable. You don’t have to feel that burden anymore.”
“It’s not just a job,” I said, my voice steady. “It’s who I am. If we go to the Orions now, we risk being outed. If we’re wrong—if they can’t protect us—I lose my chance to protect the others.”
“You can’t save everyone, Sable.”
“I know.” A lump stuck in my throat. “But I can try.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she nodded slowly.
“Fine,” she said, standing up. “I’ll stay here for now, even if I know something has to change, and soon.
Listen, if you’re going to keep fighting for the rest of the Crux, then you better make sure you don’t get yourself killed. I’ll be really pissed if you do.”
I smiled, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “I’m not going anywhere, kid.”