Chapter 36, The Return of a Ghost
Varg (Skarde)
Wren was not just running; she was targeting. Her wolf cut through the frozen brush with a single-minded intensity that pulled the three of us in her wake. She was heading straight for the pass, the jagged land-bridge where she had been ripped away from her life.
The wind shifted, bringing the rot of the neutral zone with it.
Rogues, Skuggi chirped in the link, his smoke-gray form darting between the trees. Big ones. Mangy, too. Let me at them.
Jarn did not share the playfulness. He moved like a heavy blade, his slate-colored fur bristling as he took his position on the Ghost’s flank. Just say the word. I’ll have their heads off the rocks before they can smell us.
Ghost remained silent. Her mind-link was a wall of cold, sweet honey; beautiful and impenetrable. She was not just a wolf; she was a force of nature, and we were the storm she carried with her.
We crested the ridge. Below, in the jagged throat of the pass, eight rogues were circling. They were cocky, posturing as if the lack of a border patrol during the ritual morning meant the land was theirs.
Then, a familiar snarl ripped through the valley.
“You think you can come and claim land without a fight?”
The roar did not come from the link. It was a howl that rattled the pines. A High-Ridge patrol erupted from the treeline on the opposite side. Leading them was a wolf with fur the color of mercury.
Arthur.
Ghost went rigid. She did not growl. She did not move. She stood frozen in time, her molten gold eyes fixed on the silver wolf who had spent eighteen years trying to shield her from a world that wanted her dead.
“Father?”
The word was not a shout; it was a ghost of a thought that bled through the link, shivering with a decade of suppressed love and the memory of him carrying her out of the Dead Woods.
Down in the ravine, chaos erupted. The High-Ridge wolves were outnumbered.
They hit the rogues with discipline, but the rogues fought with the desperation of the starving.
Arthur was at the center of it, his silver fur staining crimson as three rogues swarmed him at once.
He was fighting with the ferocity of a man who had nothing left to lose, as if the heart of him had been torn out from his chest.
“Skuggi. Jarn,” Ghost’s voice rang through our minds like a bell. “Kill.”
They did not wait for me to agree. With a blur of slate and smoke, my Beta and Gamma dove off the ridge. They hit the ravine like falling hammers.
Arthur skidded back, his breath coming in ragged, bloody gasps as he saw the Night-Stalker colors. He braced for a slaughter, surely thinking the end had come. But Skuggi and Jarn ignored him, tearing into the rogues with a systematic, lethal efficiency.
I stayed on the ridge, shoulder-to-shoulder with Ghost.
Arthur looked up. He saw the Midnight Blue creature standing between the trees. He saw the gold eyes that did not belong to any wolf in the history of the High-Ridge. He stood frozen, mid-snarl, his mind unable to process the goddess standing on the heights.
The lead rogue, a beast with half an ear, saw his opening. He ignored Jarn and Skuggi, instead launching himself at Arthur’s exposed, exhausted throat.
The Ghost’s hackles rose into a lethal blue ridge. The golden hook in my gut finally snapped taut.
“Kill for me,” was all she needed to say.
I launched.
I cleared the distance in a single, massive arc, my black bulk eclipsing the moon. I slammed into the rogue mid-air, the force of my impact snapping his ribs like dry kindling. We hit the dirt together, but only one of us was getting up.
I stood over the rogue’s broken body, my fangs dripping blood, and looked directly at Arthur.
The High-Ridge Beta backed away, his tail tucking instinctively as he stared up at me, and then at Jarn and Skuggi. Finally, he turned back to the Ghost on the ridge.
The terror in his eyes did not stay terror. As he looked at the Midnight Blue wolf, the fear began to melt into a soul-shaking, agonizing hope. He did not see a monster.
He saw the miracle he had been praying for since the night of the Blood Moon.