chapter 2: The New Order
842 Words
Wren's Pov
A year is a long time when you spend every single day of it trying to become someone else.
I trained until my muscles screamed. I hunted my own food, built my own shelter, fought off a rogue wolf twice my size the second month in and nearly didn't survive it. I cried myself to sleep more nights than I want to admit, but somewhere along the way, the crying stopped. My hands stopped shaking. My spine stopped bending every time I thought about that clearing, about gold eyes locking onto someone who wasn't me.
By the time the letter found me — carried by a half-starved messenger wolf who tracked my scent for three days — I almost didn't recognize the girl described in it.
*Your father collapsed. The healers don't know why. Come home. — Aunt Ruth*
I didn't hesitate. Whatever had broken between me and Ashwood, my father wasn't part of that. I packed my bag in ten minutes flat and started running.
The trip back took two days of hard travel. I crossed rivers I remembered as small creeks, now swollen from spring rain. I passed landmarks that felt both familiar and strange, like visiting a dream you'd had a long time ago. My legs burned by the time I finally saw the tree line that marked the Ashwood border.
Except it wasn't the Ashwood border anymore. Not really.
The old wooden watchtower that used to mark the boundary was gone, replaced by a taller stone structure I didn't recognize. Armed patrols moved along the tree line in tight, disciplined formations, nothing like the relaxed border guards I remembered from my childhood. And stitched onto every uniform, every banner hanging from the new structure, was a crest I'd never seen in my life — a black wolf's head crossed with a crescent moon.
Stonefang.
My stomach dropped. I'd heard rumors, even out in the wild, about a pack called Stonefang expanding its territory fast and brutal, swallowing smaller packs whole. I never imagined it would reach Ashwood.
I stopped at the tree line, my heart hammering, and grabbed the arm of a young Ashwood wolf I vaguely recognized from my childhood. "What happened here?"
Her eyes went wide. "Wren? Is that really you?"
"What happened to my pack?"
She glanced around nervously before lowering her voice. "Alpha Voss happened. Six months ago. He didn't even give us a chance to fight back — his warriors were too strong, too many. Elias tried to hold the line and got humiliated for it. Voss stripped him of his title on the spot."
Elias. Stripped of his title. Six months ago I would have felt something at that news — satisfaction, maybe, or vindication. Now I just felt numb. I had bigger things to worry about.
"My father," I said. "Ezra Calder. Is he—"
"He's alive. Sick, but alive. The healers are with him now."
Relief hit me so hard my knees nearly buckled. "I need to get to him."
"You'll need clearance from the checkpoint. Nobody moves through Ashwood territory without Stonefang approval now. That's just how it is."
I didn't have time for approval. I didn't have time for checkpoints or crests or whatever new rules some conqueror had slapped onto my home. I thanked her quickly and cut off the main path, moving through the trees the way I'd learned to move over the last year — silent, fast, invisible.
I made it almost half a mile before every instinct in my body screamed a warning.
I froze.
Something enormous stepped out from the shadow of the trees ahead of me, blocking the entire path forward. My breath caught somewhere in my throat.
He had to be at least six and a half feet tall, built like the mountain range behind him, all hard muscle and coiled power. Short dark hair. A jaw that looked carved from stone. And eyes — cold, grey, sharp as a blade — locked directly onto me like he'd known I was coming before I even crossed the border.
I'd trained an entire year to stop being afraid of anything. Standing in front of this stranger, that training was about to get its first real test.
"You're trespassing on Stonefang land," he said. His voice was low, flat, and it carried the kind of authority that made the air around us feel heavier. "State your business, or turn around and walk back the way you came."
I lifted my chin, refusing to let the fear show on my face even as my heart slammed against my ribs. "I'm not trespassing. This is my pack. My father is dying in that pack house, and I am going to see him whether you approve it or not."
Something shifted behind those grey eyes. Surprise, maybe. Or interest.
"Your pack," he repeated slowly, like he was testing the words. "Not anymore, little wolf."
He took one step closer, and every instinct in my body screamed at me to run.
I didn't move.
- Writer
