The Wolf Who Shattered Her Oath to Luna

Chapter 8

By dusk, the forest felt wrong.

Not loud, like last night. Tight. Holding its breath.

Rowan’s patrol moved ahead of us, dark shapes between trees. Cassian had insisted on “full escort”: Rowan, Jace, Kael, two more warriors. And me, the Hollow girl, walking a few steps behind the Alpha like an overprotected bomb.

“Say if it spikes,” Cassian said quietly. “Even a little.”

“It’s already humming,” I muttered. “Like it knows we’re coming.”

The nearest ward-stone rose from the earth in a shallow dip, runes faint in the blue light. This wasn’t the one I’d touched before. We were starting on the opposite side of Nightwind, methodical, working our way around.

Rowan signaled the others to fan out. Jace’s hand hovered near his knife; the air around him tasted like iron and focus.

“Go ahead,” Cassian said. “We’ve got you.”

I stepped up to the stone.

Up close, the buzz under my skin sharpened—but not as much as last night. I pressed my fingertips to the carved surface, ready this time, braced for that drag into the Luna-web.

It came, a little easier: light-lines flaring across my inner vision, connecting stone to stone. This one wasn’t frayed. Thin, yes. Worn. But holding.

“Stable,” I said. “Not pretty, but fine.”

Cassian nodded, already glancing toward the next marker on Jace’s map. “Then we keep moving.”

Three stones later, my head hurt and my teeth rang. Two had been solid. One…not so much.

“That one’s thinning,” I reported, rubbing my temple. “Like someone’s leaned on it too long.”

“We’ll reinforce it,” Jace said. “Rowan—”

He cut off, head snapping up.

I felt it a second later.

Not through the wards. Through the ground.

A vibration shivered up my legs, through the soles of my boots. Dull thumps. Running. Several sets of feet, fast and heavy, coming closer.

“Positions,” Rowan snapped. “Now.”

Warriors shifted, low and ready. Cassian’s posture changed without thought, shoulders squaring, all softness gone.

The scent hit next—sharp, sour, wild.

Rogues.

“East,” Elen’s voice called from somewhere in the trees. “Three—no, four—closing on the old creek bed!”

“Too close to the village,” Jace snarled.

Cassian’s eyes flicked to me. “Rhea, back to—”

“No,” I cut in. “If they’re using the cracks, I can—”

The impact against the nearest weak stone hit me like a fist to the chest.

I staggered, grabbing for the marker. Suddenly I was in the web again, unprepared this time, dragged into the strands as something rammed the far side of a thinning line.

“Rhea!” Kael’s voice sounded miles away.

From inside the ward, I felt claws tearing, teeth worrying at the edges. Not just brute force—guided, aimed exactly at the spot I’d just told them was weak.

They knew.

A snarl ripped through the forest, too close. Real, not in my head.

Rowan swore. “Contact!”

Steel sang as weapons came free. A rogue burst through the underbrush, eyes wild, fur patchy from half-shift, heading not for the warriors—

—for the stone.

It slammed into the marker, jaws snapping at the carved runes, and the line I was tangled in screamed.

I grabbed it with everything I had, shoving power back, trying to brace it, to thicken it, instincts taking over where knowledge failed.

For a heartbeat, it held.

Then something else pushed back from the other side.

Cold. Focused. Not the rogue. The same curious presence I’d felt last night, now shoving its weight through the crack I was trying to fill.

Found you, a voice brushed my mind, distant and amused. Little Hollow.

The line snapped.

Magic whipped through me, white-hot. I screamed, body arching, hand fused to the stone as the ward blew open.

And around us, in the trees, more shapes moved—too many footfalls, too many savage hearts beating—

As the world went white, I realized the first wave had only been a test.