I Was the Pack’s Mistake… Until the Alpha Saw Our Little Wolf

Chapter 14 – Riding the Black Thread

It feels like a terrible idea even before the magic bites.

“Absolutely not,” I say. “You want me to step onto the same rope he’s using to drag children into cages? Pass.”

Mira’s gaze doesn’t waver. “You already did, girl. The moment you asked your pup what he saw.”

“That was standing at the door,” I snap. “You’re asking us to walk inside.”

Torren snorts. “Not walk. Glimpse. The wards won’t let you go all the way, even if you try. They’re not fond of suicides.”

Across from me, Corren’s eyes are fixed on the air over Lyren’s palm. On the threads only we can see while we’re in the circle.

The black one hums, ugly and insistent. Every few heartbeats it jerks, sending a faint ripple through the gold and silver lines beside it.

“How long can he keep pulling?” Corren asks quietly.

Mira’s mouth flattens. “As long as the hooks hold. And the boy’s not the only one he tagged. This is just the part we can see.”

Lyren swallows. “I don’t like him in my head,” he whispers.

I curl my arm around him, pulling him against my side. “Then we give him somewhere else to be busy,” I say. “Fine. How does this work?”

Mira’s smile is all teeth. “You anchor. He leads.”

She nods at Lyren. “He already has the path. You two—” her eyes flick to me and Corren “—ride along the outer strands. Skim, don’t dive. The wards will yank you back if you go too deep. Probably before your brains melt.”

“Reassuring,” I mutter.

Torren steps closer, laying a heavy hand on Corren’s shoulder, another on mine. His grip is iron. “I’ll hold your bodies here. Mira will hold your minds to the circle. The boy will reach. You will see.”

“And if we see something we don’t like?” Corren asks.

“Then you bring it back,” Mira says. “Names. Smells. Shapes. Anything. The river, the metal, the hum.” Her gaze cuts to me. “Every hunter knows you don’t charge blindly into a den. You read the wind first.”

She’s right. I hate that she’s right.

“Lyren.” I tip his chin up so he’s looking at me. “Listen. You don’t go anywhere we don’t go with you. You don’t answer if he talks. You don’t pull, you only feel. If anything hurts, you let go. You come back to me. Understood?”

His throat bobs. “Understood.”

“And if your mother gets stuck,” Torren adds dryly, “you kick her back.”

Lyren’s mouth twitches. “I can kick hard.”

I squeeze his hand. “I know.”

Mira’s voice softens a fraction. “Close your eyes, child. Find your threads again.”

He does. The air hums. The silver and gold lines brighten, pulsing gently.

“And you two,” she says, eyes on us, “stop fighting that bond like it’s a snake. It’s a rope. Hold it.”

I meet Corren’s gaze across the stone. For a heartbeat, we hang there, ancient hurt and newer terror tangled between us.

Then, slowly, I open.

Not all the way. Not like before. Just enough for the old mark on my skin to warm, for the echo of his wolf to brush mine. The silver thread between us glows brighter.

His breath stutters. His hand curls on his knee, then relaxes.

“Good,” Mira murmurs. “Now… follow.”

The black thread jerks. Lyren flinches, but he doesn’t let go.

The world tips.

It isn’t like shifting, where bone and muscle rearrange. It’s more like being yanked through a too‑small tunnel made of sound and scent and pressure.

For a dizzy heartbeat I’m nowhere and everywhere—caught between my son’s pulse and Corren’s, between the oak’s deep roots and something cold and hollow far away.

Then the rush steadies.

We don’t leave our bodies; I can still feel the stone under me, Lyren’s shoulder pressed to my side, Torren’s hand like a vise on my own. But layered over that is something else.

A place that’s not here.

I smell damp concrete. Old oil. A reek of chemicals that sting my nose even in this half‑state. The hum of machines vibrates through my teeth—a constant, low‑grade buzz.

Water, too. Not clean river or wild sea. Flat, stale, held back.

Floodgates, my wolf whispers. Reservoir.

Corren’s presence flickers at the edge of my awareness, a steady anchor. I feel his focus sharpen, hunting for details.

Shapes flicker in the dark—corridors, chain‑link fences, the flash of a sign in human letters. I catch pieces as we slide along the thread:

BLOCK C – TESTING

NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS

CAUTION: HIGH VOLTAGE

A voice cuts through, muffled and raw. Not heard with ears, but along the same awful line we’re riding.

“…pull harder. I don’t care if it strains them. The boy is the key. Get him here.”

Silas.

My lip curls. The torn howl scrapes against my senses like a rusted blade. Even through this filtered connection, it feels wrong—too loud in some places, gone in others, like a song with half its notes missing.

He’s close to the end of his rope. Literally.

“See his face,” Mira’s distant voice murmurs, threading through the buzz. “Show him you see him.”

The next jerk on the line isn’t from Lyren.

It’s from me.

I let my wolf snap, just once, along the black thread—nothing like the full‑throated howl my pup flung at him, just the barest hint of teeth.

The reaction is immediate.

The pressure on the line spikes, vicious and startled. For a fraction of a second, an image slams into me: a man standing on a metal walkway over dark water, head thrown back, scars raking down one side of his throat like claw marks that never healed clean. Around him, lights buzz. Behind him, a row of doors with tiny windows, each one flickering with the faint glow of a sleeping child’s mind.

He jerks as if slapped. His head snaps toward us—toward the line.

“Well now,” his broken voice rasps, echoing wrong through my skull. “Who’s this? The little stray and… oh. Oh. The mistake and her Alpha. How touching.”

Rage roars up my spine.

“Enough,” Mira’s voice snaps, sharp as a twig breaking. “Back.”

The wards yank.

Pain flares, white‑hot. The concrete and water and buzzing lights tear away. The black thread whips, trying to hold us, claws scraping uselessly along the circle’s old magic.

Then, with a sickening twang, it snaps.

We slam back into our bodies.

I topple sideways off the heartstone, catching myself with a palm in cold dirt. Lyren gasps, clutching his head. Corren doubles over with a groan, hands braced on his knees.

For a moment, the world is just pounding heartbeats and oak‑filtered sky.

Then Mira’s laughter, thin and fierce, cuts through the ringing in my ears.

“Well,” she says. “I’d say he noticed you.”

Torren hauls me upright with one hand. “What did you see?”

I meet Corren’s gaze. His eyes are blown wide, wolf close to the surface.

“Water,” I rasp. “Concrete. Block C. High‑voltage signs.”

“And him,” Corren says, voice low. “Standing over it all with a broken throat and a pack of stolen pups behind locked doors.”

Eldric steps closer, eyes bright. “Can you place it?”

Corren rubs a shaking hand over his face, already sifting mental maps. “Reservoir north of the old hydro plant. They retrofitted part of the dam for ‘research’ a few years back. Human‑run, supposedly. We never had clearance to go inside.”

“Now you do,” Mira says. “You have a face, a voice, and a block number. And he no longer has a clean line to your boy—not through this ground.”

Lyren leans into me, exhausted but still there, still ours.

Somewhere out there, the man with the torn howl just felt his favorite leash fray.

And now we know exactly which concrete hole he’s been hiding in.