Chapter Eight
Adrian
The Highlands didn’t care who you were. It didn’t care about bloodlines, titles, or the politics that clung to a name like burrs.
It didn’t care that Adrian had been raised among chandeliers and sharp-edged expectations, that he’d learned to smile while men measured him like a commodity.
Here, the land stripped you down to what you could endure.
Adrian loved it for that.
The short climb began at the edge of the glen, where the last of the trees gave way to an open slope and the wind came at them with teeth.
The Gauthier clan moved in a loose file, boots scuffing over stone, breath smoking in the cold.
Their fort, less castle, more stronghold, sat behind them in the valley, its lights already small and distant.
Max walked at Adrian’s right shoulder, silent as a shadow.
Rowland brought up the rear, muttering about French kings and their terrible ideas, but his eyes were bright with anticipation.
Piper kept pace with Adrian on the left, her scarf wrapped high, her expression calm and unshakeable.
Marilee sauntered at a snail’s pace, to the side of everyone, always trying to be the one on the periphery.
Garrett stalked a few paces ahead, as if determined to reach the low summit first and claim it by sheer spite. Jasmine moved with the sure-footed ease of someone who’d spent her life on uneven ground, occasionally pointing out safer footing without making a fuss about it.
Laurence looked as though he’d rather be anywhere else, but Adrian caught the way his gaze kept sweeping the group, counting and assessing, a doctor’s habit.
He lifted his chin and tasted the air. Cold. Heather. Snow somewhere higher up. And beneath it all, the faint metallic tang that always rode the wind here, as if the Highlands had iron in its bones.
“Nearly there,” Jasmine called, not winded in the slightest.
Rowland huffed. “She says that like it’s a comfort.”
Adrian laughed. The sound snatched away by the wind. “It is a comfort. It means she’s not lying to us.”
Max’s mouth twitched. “She could be lying. She wouldn’t sound like it.”
Piper gave Adrian a sideways glance. “You’re enjoying this.”
Adrian didn’t bother denying it. “Of course, I am.”
Because the higher they climbed, the more the noise inside him quietened.
The fort, the tension of his new role and supposed purpose, the constant undercurrent of challenge.
Garrett’s resentment, the clan’s uncertainty, the weight of being new to a crown that still felt too heavy, all of it fell away with every step.
Up here, there was only wind and stone and the pull under his skin. The itch on his shoulder that wouldn’t leave.
His wolf. It had been restless all day, pacing behind his ribs, impatient with walls and human voices. Adrian had felt it in the way his fingers flexed, in the way his teeth ached faintly as if they wanted to lengthen.
They crested a final ridge and the world opened.
The summit wasn’t a sharp point but a broad, stony shoulder of a mountain, scattered with lichen and patches of frost. Above them, the sky was clear for once, a deep, endless black, and the moon hung low and bright, a silver coin pinned to the heavens.
Adrian stopped, his chest rising and falling, and turned slowly in place. The Highlands stretched out in every direction, dark and vast, the glens and lochs like shadows poured into the earth. The wind up here was stronger, cleaner, carrying the scent of snow and distant water.
It felt like standing on the edge of something holy.
Rowland let out a low whistle. “Never fails to impress. If this doesn’t make a man feel small, nothing will.”
Piper’s eyes shone. “It’s beautiful.”
Max scanned the horizon, ever vigilant, then nodded once. “Clear.”
Garrett threw his arms out, as if daring the mountain to challenge him. “About time.”
Adrian watched him for a beat, then looked away. Garrett’s anger was a constant, but even he couldn’t ruin this. Adrian stepped forward to the centre of the flat stone and turned to face them.
“No fighting,” he said, his voice carrying in the thin air. “No proving points. This is a run. This is for us.”
Garrett’s lip curled. “And if I don’t take orders from you?”
Max shifted subtly, but Adrian saw it for what it was: a warning.
Adrian held Garrett’s gaze, calm as ice. “Then you can walk back down alone in the dark.”
For a moment Garrett looked like he might argue. Then something in the mountain’s silence pressed down on him, and he gave a sharp nod, his jaw clenched. “Fine.”
Adrian exhaled slowly. Good enough.
He stripped first, because he was done waiting for permission from anyone, himself included. Coat off, jumper over his head, boots kicked aside. The cold hit his skin like a shock, but it was a clean shock, invigorating rather than cruel.
Around him, the others followed suit. Clothes piled on rocks, laughter rough and brief.
Rowland complained loudly about the temperature while moving with the speed of a man who couldn’t wait to be furred.
Laurence muttered something about hypothermia and then, hypocrite that he was, stripped just as quickly.
Piper’s movements were unhurried, dignified. Jasmine rolled her shoulders as if she were preparing for a fight. Max was all efficiency, his eyes never leaving the horizon for long. Garrett tore off his shirt as though it had insulted him.
Adrian stood barefoot on cold stone and let the wolf rise. His shift was a rush of heat under his skin, a surge that started in his spine and rolled outward. Bones reshaped with a pressure that was almost painful. Almost.
Muscles tightened, rearranged, strengthened. His senses sharpened until the world snapped into focus like a blade drawn from a sheath.
Smell first. Max’s clean, iron scent. Piper’s lavender and smoke.
Rowland’s spice and old wood. Garrett’s anger, sharp and acidic.
Jasmine’s earth and stone. Laurence’s antiseptic and nerves.
And the mountain itself, a cold rock filled with lichen, and the faint sweetness of heather crushed underfoot.
Adrian shook once, fur rippling along his body. He was a wolf. Not as massive as Connor’s would be—Adrian knew that instinctively—but sleek, powerful, built for speed and endurance. Adrian’s coat was dark grey with lighter streaks along his shoulders, like moonlight caught in motion.
Max’s wolf came to his right, big and solid, a dark entity. Piper’s was smaller but fierce, her eyes bright with intelligence. Rowland’s was broad and shaggy, already bouncing on his paws like a pup despite his age. Jasmine’s was lean and sharp, her ears pricked, ready to sprint.
Marilee was small, dark brown, and deadly, her petite frame belying the violence that Adrian suspected lay deep beneath her fur.
Garrett’s wolf was enormous. Thick-necked and bristling with dominance. He paced in a tight circle, testing the air, testing the pack. Laurence’s wolf looked perpetually unimpressed.
Adrian’s chest filled with something that wasn’t merely air. Belonging. He gave a low chuff, command and invitation both. They moved.
Not down the mountain. There was no need. The summit was theirs, a wide playground under the moon. They ran in looping arcs, wolves darting and weaving, bodies bumping in play that was half challenge, half joy.
Rowland barrelled into Max and bounced off like a thrown stone, yelping in delighted outrage.
Max snapped playfully at his flank, herding him back toward the centre.
Marilee kept mostly to herself but allowed a small amount of play between her and the others.
Jasmine chased Garrett, nipping at his heels, daring him to react.
Garrett spun, teeth flashing, and for a heartbeat the air tightened with dominance, challenge, and old instincts.
Adrian stepped between them. Not with words, but with presence. He stood still, head high, tail steady, and let the pack feel him. Let them feel the fact that he was King, whether or not Garrett liked it.
Garrett froze, his hackles lifting. Adrian held his gaze. Then Garrett looked away first with a frustrated shake of his head and bounded off toward the far edge of the summit, as if he could outrun his own submission.
Adrian exhaled, the tension easing. Max brushed his shoulder as he passed, a silent acknowledgment of a job well done.
They ran again, faster now, the pack loosening into pure movement. Adrian leapt from rock to rock, claws scraping, heart hammering with exhilaration. The wind tore through his fur, cold and clean, and he felt, truly felt, alive.
At the summit’s highest point, Adrian stopped. The moon was directly above, bright enough to paint the stones silver. He howled. The sound ripped out of him, raw and beautiful, echoing off the mountain’s bones. It wasn’t a cry of loneliness. It was a declaration.
I am here. I am not afraid. I am not alone.
One by one, the others joined in. Max’s howl was deep and steady.
Piper’s was fierce. Rowland’s wobbled at the end, as if he were emotional and tried to pretend he wasn’t.
Jasmine’s was sharp and wild. Even Laurence howled, though his sounded as though it was under protest. Garrett’s howl came last, loud, furious, and threaded with something that might’ve been defiance.
The chorus rolled out across the Highlands, a sound older than castles and crowns. When it faded, the silence that followed felt sacred.
They played again, softer now. Wolves sprawled in the frost, rolling on their backs, snapping at each other’s muzzles.
Rowland tried to start a wrestling match with Piper and was pinned for his arrogance.
Jasmine trotted along the edge of the summit, ever watchful, her archaeologist instincts translating neatly into wolf vigilance.
Adrian lay on the cold stone and stared up at the moon.
For a moment, everything was simple. Then the weight returned, creeping back in around the edges as the fort, the village, the Council of Veils, and the binding he hadn’t fully explained to anyone because he didn’t yet understand it himself. All of it weighed heavy.
Connor. Even here, even in wolf form, the thought of him tugged at Adrian like a thread. His ears flicked back, uneasy.
Max’s wolf nudged him, a question. Adrian rose, shaking off frost. He gave a short bark. Time.
The pack moved, instinctively gathering. They padded back down the mountain in a controlled lope, careful on the steep path, paws sure on stone.
The descent was quieter, the earlier wildness banked into a steady, satisfied calm.
By the time they slipped into the shelter of trees and rocks, one by one they returned to human form, gasps, shudders, the soft thud of knees bending under the force of it.
Adrian felt the shift pressing again, the human skin waiting beneath the fur. He stood barefoot in the cold, breath steaming, and pulled on his clothes with fingers that still felt half-clawed.
Rowland was the first to speak, his voice rough. “That,” he said, tugging on his shirt, “was worth every blasted step.”
Piper smiled, her cheeks flushed. “We needed it.”
Max nodded once. “Pack’s calmer.”
Garrett didn’t speak. He dressed with sharp movements, his jaw clenched, but his eyes were less wild than they’d been earlier. The mountain had taken something out of him, or put something back.
They walked down the slope, across the land, and into the fort together, boots thudding on stone, warmth spilling out to meet them.
Inside, the air smelt of woodsmoke and stew, and home.
Adrian paused inside the door, letting the heat sink into his skin. His clan moved around him, laughing softly, shoulders bumping, alive.
For tonight, they were safe.
For tonight, they were whole.
Adrian looked up toward the dark window where the moon still hung, distant and watchful. Hope sat in his chest like a small, stubborn flame.
Uncertain, yes, but real.
And as he followed his pack deeper into the fort’s warmth, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the howl they’d sent into the night had been heard by more than the mountains.
Later that night, Adrian felt it, a faint warmth beneath his collarbone, so subtle he almost dismissed it as leftover adrenaline. A spark of heat came and went with no pattern, like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
He’d been pouring tea at the long table in the drawing room, hands shaking more from exhaustion than anything supernatural, when that flicker burnt briefly beneath his skin. He hissed softly and pressed his palm to the ache.
“Burn yourself?” Piper asked, eyeing him over her mug.
“No,” Adrian lied. “Just tired.”
She accepted the half-truth. Everyone was too tired and overwhelmed to question anything.
It continued, growing, deepening, as though something beneath his skin were waking with the dawn. What the fuck is happening to me?
By the next day, Adrian could no longer pretend.
The itch throbbed with a heat that felt too deliberate to be natural.
He stood leaning against the stone balustrade overlooking the lower courtyard, his breath fogging in the cold air, watching his clan move about with a strange sense of reversed distance.
Like he was the ghost drifting above them instead of the man in their midst.
The ache pulsed again, sharper this time, and Adrian closed his eyes.
It’s an infection, he assured himself. Nothing that a bit of cortisone cream won’t clean up. I’ll speak to Piper when I see her. Nothing a little TLC won’t cure.