Chapter 11
SABLE
Icouldn’t have heard correctly. He was defending me against his pack when he had every reason to believe that I was the source of new problems. Indeed, I likely was.
And now I couldn’t help but stand up for him too.
“He couldn’t have known,” I jumped in. “I used an old trick to prevent him from scenting her.” It was partly true. I had used what was available to me through my silver magic to cover Astrid’s tracks. But I knew what had really kept Rhys’s attention.
It was me. My traitorous body had sung to him, and once that had begun, I couldn’t hide my scent.
He had to be as aware as I was about how the Shadow Moon Goddess had mocked me—tying me to someone I had no business wanting. Someone I had no business craving. And certainly I couldn’t let myself believe he was my fated mate.
My wolf did.
Even now, with a half-dozen wolves watching my every move, my body still hummed with the imprint of his weight, the ghost of his breath on my skin.
Desire was the surface of it, but the feeling of this bond being absolute was restless under my skin.
What was going on between us was much older than desire.
The Crux alpha had been clear—fated mates were a relic of a time before the Great Separation, a foolish ideal that had nearly led to destruction.
Crux wolves had to be extra careful. We had to avoid falling prey to false mates, as that had undone so many other female wolves.
Not fated mates, those males chained their mates to a different destiny, stripping any choice from their hands through a bond that wasn’t sacred.
There had been times when Crux women had also been dominated for their gifts by their so-called mates.
The story had been passed down through the generations about how we’d almost been completely wiped out, absorbed by other packs.
It was the danger that came with our gifts.
And it was why, ever since, our alphas had been determined to turn us into warriors, writing our own destiny.
I bit the inside of my cheek, refusing to acknowledge the way my body still hummed in response to Rhys, how my wolf was pacing in frustration, clawing at my insides. It was unnatural. Wrong.
Eve and Logan were different. I’d known right away that they had to be together. That the stars and the Shadow Moon had decided on it long ago, that Logan would destroy Damian, Grayson, and the entire Heraclid pack.
It had all been leading to this. Logan and Eve.
Now it was as if their bond had split the dam wide open, and we were all being dragged under the current into matehood.
I clenched my fists. This had to be a mistake.
I had spent my entire life watching the Crux uphold traditions and fight for survival. Yet the moment Rhys had touched me, the moment his scent had overtaken me, it was as if something deep inside me had recognized him and reached for him like a drowning thing swept away by the current.
I turned my ring on my finger, drawing from its power to quell the part of me that wanted to take over. This couldn’t be fate. Or if it was, I’d rip myself free of it. Pretending it didn’t exist wasn’t going to help.
Especially when surrounded by his pack.
They were all watching Astrid and me. While I was impressed by Astrid’s courage, I never would have wanted her to use it for me. Still, I was incredibly relieved knowing she was there. Even if I couldn’t keep her safe, I knew Eve would. I just had to get Eve alone to explain.
“Back to the town,” Logan commanded, and we shifted together, a fluid motion that rippled through the clearing.
I let the change take me, bones snapping and reshaping, fur spilling across my skin.
When my paws hit the ground, I focused. I had to remain contained, controlled, masking my true scent.
The ring helped. With every shift, it embedded itself into my claw, the silver magic liquefying it into a mark that no one could see unless they looked for it.
The silver was working, pressing my power down as we ran in a group.
The elders knew what they were doing. They flanked me at a distance.
Raina and Anwen moved just close enough to brush against my energy, trying to sense what I was.
Their presence was invasive, with quiet, invisible hands reaching into the depths of me, trying to see what lay within.
If I slipped up, they just might know. It was one thing if they sensed I was Crux—they might have some idea of that—but if they caught the scent of the other part of me…
I kept my head forward. My body was light and fast, the night taking over as we ran.
The Orion lands stretched wide beneath us, rolling hills and dense, towering pines, their scent rich and layered in ways the Heraclid land had never been.
The earth here breathed differently. It was healthier. The land knew who lived upon it.
I pushed down the curl of something in my chest. The land knew the Orion pack, but the pack didn’t know what had become of the lost Orion brothers.
I know the black hearts of Logan’s twin brothers. Blacker than night and unredeemable. Just like Rhys.
The Orion village unfolded before us, the scent of fresh wood and churned earth thick in the air.
The Old Town was still under construction, half-built structures standing in defiance of what had been torn down.
Wolves moved like a tide through the streets—hauling lumber, setting stones, mending what had been broken.
It was a sight I wouldn’t have believed I’d see months ago. Heraclids and Orions coming together.
Beneath the activity, I felt fractures, tension.
Conversations dipped as we passed by in wolf form. Shoulders stiffened and wary eyes tracked my every movement. Some scents I recognized—wolves who had once served under Grayson, now forced to live among those they’d once terrorized.
And there I was—former Heraclid, now unaffiliated, walking among them with an escort of the alpha and his mate, elders, a tracker, and a beta who growled whenever someone looked at me. I might as well have been wearing a target on my back.
I kept my expression neutral, my steps measured. I’d spent years cultivating invisibility, staying aloof so I could slip in and out as needed to save my pack sisters from wherever they were held. The Crux enforcer when duty called. No ties, no roots. A shadow among shadows.
Here, there was no slipping away. No blending into the background.
A woman tugged a child closer as I passed. A group of warriors—patched up and bearing fresh scars—muttered under their breath, one of them spitting onto the ground.
I didn’t flinch, but my wolf bristled.
And through it all, I could feel Rhys at my flank. His energy was a steady weight against my own. As if he was making it clear to the entire village—and maybe to himself—that he wasn’t letting me out of his sight.
I exhaled through my nose and kept walking.
I’d been surrounded by enemies before. This time, it was different. This time, I wasn’t sure whose side I was on.
The Orions put us up in a cabin that smelled of old cedar and pine resin, the scent thick in the corners where time had settled with the dust. It was a sturdy thing, built to last, with hand-carved beams that stretched across the ceiling like ribs.
The hearth was dark, but I could still see it as it must have been once, before war and loss. A family cabin. A place of safety.
For me, it was a cage.
I paced to the window, peering out at the stretch of land beyond the enforcers stationed outside. The village pulsed with life in the distance—wolves moving between shops, warriors training in a dirt-packed circle.
Astrid sat on the edge of a worn leather couch, her legs pulled up to her chest, watching me with thinly veiled exasperation. “You know, you could at least pretend to be happy about this.”
I snorted and turned away from the window. “Happy about what? Being under house arrest? Being babysat by Orion enforcers who’d rather see me dead?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s a little dramatic.”
“They’re not exactly throwing us a welcome party.”
Astrid sighed, stretching out her legs with a pointed yawn.
“This is good, Sable. We can finally stop running. Now that you’ve told me there’s some funky cosmic business brewing between you and the beta, maybe you could even see if it’s a bond worth pursuing.
” I choked at the thought. I’d told Astrid the least I could about Rhys, that a bond had been planted and was causing interference.
“Come on, Mama Sabe. We can have a real life here.”
A real life.
I didn’t know what that meant. My entire existence had been built on movement, never letting anyone close enough to hold me still.
“I don’t do real life,” I muttered, pulling my hair into a tight ponytail.
She frowned. “Maybe you could try it.”
I didn’t answer. The romantic idea of real life had its draws.
Sure, there were times I thought about settling in with a pack, being a part of that community and building it up while watching the generations thrive.
It sounded nice, but when I thought of my pack sisters, the Crux who remained persecuted, alone, and sometimes not even knowing they had a pack out there…
that kept me going. No comforts of simple pack life could draw me away from that call.
I turned back to the window, my mind drifting to someone who had nothing to do with Orion. Nothing to do with my own personal hell.
Dahlia.
She should have been with us here. She should have been free.
I could still see the way she’d looked in the auction hall—barefoot, her arms chained, her dark eyes burning with the last embers of defiance as they led her to the platform.
I’d been so close. I’d almost gotten her out. I’d almost ripped her away from that nightmare.
But I’d hesitated.
That damn shifter had reached for me—Wyatt Orion—just a brush of his fingers when I’d nearly tripped trying to follow her. At his touch, I froze. In him, I’d seen nothing but blackness. His blackness. A hole so deep I was worried I’d fall in. My abilities saw into the very heart of him…
And saw nothing.
It was an emptiness so deep it swallowed every instinct, every thought. I’d never felt anything like it before.
Wyatt Orion, close to being feral but still powerful, with piercing eyes that birthed a fear I didn’t know I had in me. I’d found myself again and ripped my arm away from him.
And in that moment where I was sucked into the nothingness of the Orion soul, the deal had shifted. Dahlia wasn’t in the line anymore. She was gone.
I clenched my jaw, forcing the memory back into the shadows where it belonged.
“I need to get out of here,” I muttered, turning from the window and sitting beside Astrid on the sofa. “I need to find Dahlia. She’s still out there, Astrid.”
“I know,” she said, sitting up, her expression serious. “But you barely made it out of that mess alive. What do you think is going to happen if you go after her now? You think they’re just going to let you waltz in wherever she is and take her?”
My hands curled into fists. “I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“Of course you do. You’re smarter than that. Which is why I owe you my life.” She scoffed. “And it’s also why you aren’t going anywhere now.”
I exhaled sharply, rubbing my eyes so hard I saw stars.
Astrid was right. I couldn’t just run off, not with every Orion wolf watching me like I was a grenade with a loose pin. I also couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. Dahlia had already spent too long in the hands of monsters.
If I had to play along with this ridiculous fate-damned situation for a little while, fine.
But I wasn’t staying. And I sure wasn’t going to let some cruel joke of a fated bond shackle me here. I would find a way out.
I just had to get a particular shifter off my back.
Even in that moment, I felt him. A beat of a pulse reaching me from beyond, and I knew it was his. I had to find a way to turn that to my advantage.
I had to play the game. A little game of fated mate, one that ended with me taking off and him having turned on me such that he’d never want me again.
I had to get him to reject the bond.
When the thought crystallized, the world tilted sideways.
I gasped, hands flying to my chest as his emotions crashed into mine. His wolf was snarling, demanding, and my own wolf responded instantly with a hunger that made my knees buckle.
Pain ripped through me like lightning. My pain, his pain. I didn’t know anymore.
Frustration. Raw, clawing frustration.
“Sable?” Astrid’s voice sounded like it was underwater.
Another wave slammed into me. Desire so desperate I nearly cried out.
Mine, his wolf snarled through the connection. Find her. Claim her. Now.
“No,” I whispered. The cabin spun, walls blurring as his hunger became mine.
I could feel him moving. His pulse hammered against my ribs like a caged animal, and beneath it all was a possessiveness so absolute it made my silver magic recoil.
“What’s happening?” Astrid was beside me, hands on my shoulders.
“He’s—” Another surge hit me, carrying his wolf’s primal need to hunt, to pin me down and never let me go. My body arched involuntarily.
The ring on my finger grew hot, silver magic fighting to contain what was happening. It wasn’t enough. The bond pulsed between us like a heartbeat, growing stronger.
“I can feel him,” I gasped. “He’s coming.”
Somewhere across town, Rhys had stopped whatever he was doing. I could taste his determination like copper.
“Who’s coming?” Astrid’s voice sharpened.
“Rhys.” The name fell like a curse. “The bond—it’s getting stronger.”
Another wave crashed over me, focused and predatory. His wolf had caught my scent.
“This is bad.” I stumbled toward the window, legs shaking. Through the glass, the enforcers looked bored, unaware their charge was being flayed alive by invisible strings of fate.
“Why?”
“Once it gets too strong, there’s no breaking it.” Another pulse made me bite back a moan. “If I don’t get him to reject me soon, we’ll be tied together forever.”
I’d spent my life avoiding exactly this scenario. Now it was happening beyond any of my control.
Unless I could get him to reject me.
“What do we do?”
Another surge—soon his wolf would demand he come to me, whether he wanted it or not.
“We prepare.” My hands shook as I pulled my hair back. “Because Rhys is going to show up here really soon, and when he sees what this bond is doing to me…”
I knew what would happen when an unmated wolf of alpha descent found his supposed mate writhing in pain. He would do everything in his power to make it stop. He’d do something that couldn’t be undone and be bound to me forever. Bile grew in my gut at the thought.
I cannot be bound to that soulless wolf.