CHAPTER 4:
1659 Words
“Dad, please don’t do this.”
Skye’s voice cracked against the silence, raw and trembling, as it filled the study. Her father didn’t answer. He stood hunched over the desk, the sound of metal grinding against stone echoing like a heartbeat through the room. The dagger caught the light, flashing once, before he dragged it across the whetstone again — slow, deliberate, final.
Skye hovered in the doorway, clutching her mother’s diary to her chest like it was the only thing holding her together. “It’s what he wants, Dad,” she said, stepping closer. “Mom wrote about this — about their tactics. They push, they provoke, until someone takes the bait. If you go after them now, you’re walking into a trap.”
Dane Garrick didn’t even lift his gaze. His jaw flexed, a muscle ticking like a clock counting down to something inevitable. “He killed your mother, Skye.” The words came low, guttural. “He left her in the dirt like prey. There’s no trap left to fear. There’s only justice.”
“That’s not justice,” she shot back. Her breath hitched, but she forced the words out. “Mom believed in peace. She believed in something better — the Golden Wolf, remember? The one who could bring balance to both sides. She wrote—”
“She’s gone.” His voice sliced through hers, quiet but sharp enough to still the air. Finally, he looked up. The man who used to laugh too easily, who used to hum while fixing breakfast, was gone. In his place stood a stranger carved from stone, his eyes cold and gray. “Myths don’t save anyone. Blood does.”
“Dad—”
He rose from the chair, sliding the dagger into its sheath. The final scrape of leather seemed to seal his decision. “The funeral is tomorrow,” he said, moving past her toward the door. “The packs will gather. And then, we march.”
She caught his sleeve. “You can’t win this war.”
He stopped, resting a heavy hand on her shoulder — a weight that said goodbye more than comfort. “I don’t need to win,” he said softly. “I just need to make him bleed.”
Then he was gone, the sound of his boots fading down the hall. The house felt smaller the moment he left — walls pressing inward, air thick with something that wasn’t quite grief and not yet rage. Skye stood there until her arm went numb, staring at the empty doorway, the dagger’s echo still ringing in her ears.
The house had been silent for days, but silence didn’t mean peace. It was a living thing — heavy, breathing, full of ghosts. Her mother’s scent lingered faintly on the curtains, in the sheets, in the corner of her favorite chair. Skye drifted through it all like a shadow, each step another reminder that the woman who had once filled these rooms with warmth was now gone, and her father was slipping away too.
On the fourth night, rain began to fall — soft at first, then steady. She sat by the window, the diary open in her lap, tracing her mother’s looping handwriting with trembling fingers. “The Golden Wolf rises not from vengeance, but from mercy.”
Mercy. Her father didn’t remember what that meant anymore.
Across the city, Derek slammed his locker shut and flinched as pain shot down his arm. The bruise there was deep purple, shaped like his father’s hand. Training had been brutal that morning — punishment disguised as preparation. Damon Clawson had called it “discipline.” Derek called it cruelty.
He rolled his shoulders, the muscles aching beneath his hoodie, and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the metal door — crimson eyes staring back at him, faintly glowing under the flicker of the overhead light. He blinked hard, forcing the color to fade.
He’d learned to hide it — the strength, the reflexes, the curse of what he was. But lately, it was harder to pretend. Harder to be human.
And then there was Skye.
He’d tried to bury thoughts of her under exhaustion and pain, but they always rose back up. The way she’d smiled despite her wariness. The way she looked at the world like it still had beauty left in it. He needed to see her, even if just to remind himself that there was still something untouched by the blood and violence of his family.
By the time he reached her mythology class, the seats were filling up — except hers. The sight of it hit him harder than any punch his father had thrown. He checked the library, the courtyard, the café where she always ordered her drink too sweet. Nothing.
A knot of dread tightened in his stomach.
He was about to try her dorm when he heard the click of heels. Joanna. She leaned against a pillar, arms folded, wearing that too-sweet smile that always meant trouble.
“Looking for someone, Derek?” she asked, her tone dripping amusement. “Don’t tell me the Alpha’s son has gone soft.”
He glared. “What do you want?”
She tilted her head, eyes gleaming. “Oh, nothing much. Just thought you should know — your little human friend? She’s gone. Family emergency.” Her voice softened mockingly. “Something tragic.”
The air in his lungs turned to stone. “What did you say?”
Joanna smirked. “Guess she couldn’t handle the world you live in. Shame, though. She really thought you were just a normal guy.”
Her words twisted like a blade, but beneath them was something worse — recognition. His father’s voice replayed in his head from the night before: “The strike was flawless. The White Pack will never recover from this.”
He’d felt proud for a heartbeat — before realizing what that meant. Now the timing, the “triumph,” the tragedy… all aligned too perfectly.
He left without another word.
It took one phone call — one quiet threat — to a university official to get her address. He didn’t even remember the drive. The rain had stopped by the time he reached her street, but the sky hung low and gray, pressing on him like guilt made weather.
Her house was small, tucked against the edge of the woods, its windows dark except for one faint glow upstairs. He stood on the porch for a moment, staring at the door, trying to find the right thing to say. There was no right thing.
He knocked anyway.
The door creaked open, and the sight of her nearly shattered him. Her hair hung loose, damp at the ends. Her eyes — those bright, fierce golden eyes — were rimmed red, dulled by loss. She looked fragile in a way he’d never imagined possible.
“Derek?” Her voice was small, stunned. “What are you doing here?”
He swallowed, his throat tight. “You weren’t at school. I… I got worried.”
“Worried?” she repeated, almost laughing. “You shouldn’t have bothered.”
“Skye, what happened?”
The question broke her. A hollow, bitter laugh slipped out, one that sounded too much like her father’s anger and not enough like her. “What happened?” she whispered. “My mother’s dead, Derek. That’s what happened.”
He froze.
The ground shifted beneath him, memory colliding with realization — his father’s voice, the word ambush, the pride in it. His stomach turned.
“Skye,” he started, “I—”
But she was looking at him differently now. Her eyes narrowed, flicking over him like she was seeing him for the first time. His unnatural reflexes. The things he’d dodged saying. His father’s name.
Her lips parted. “Your name,” she said softly. “Clawson.”
He hesitated. “Yeah—”
“Derek Clawson,” she continued, her voice shaking. “Son of Damon Clawson. Alpha of the Red Pack.”
Silence fell like a knife.
“Skye…”
Her breathing quickened, fury rising through grief like fire through dry leaves. “Your father killed my mother.”
He stepped forward. “I didn’t know—”
“Don’t.” Her voice was sharp enough to cut through his denial. She backed away, one hand gripping the doorframe for balance. “Don’t you dare say you didn’t know.”
“Skye, please—”
“You lied to me!” she screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Everything you said — everything — was that just part of his plan? To get close to me? To the Alpha’s human daughter?”
“No!” His voice broke. “It wasn’t like that. I swear it.”
She shook her head, trembling, her anger splintering into something colder. “Get out.”
“Let me explain—”
“Explain?” Her laugh cracked like thunder. “Explain how your family destroyed mine? How you were training to finish what he started?”
“Skye, please.”
Her hand tightened on the edge of the door, knuckles white. “I don’t believe you. Not anymore.”
And then she whispered, almost gently, “Get off my porch, Derek Clawson. Before I forget who I am.”
The door slammed shut between them.
For a long moment, he just stood there, rain beginning again, pattering softly on the porch roof. He could still smell her — lavender and salt — fading behind the wood.
When he finally turned back toward his car, a wolf’s distant howl broke the night. It rolled through the trees, raw and lonely, echoing something hollow in his chest.
He didn’t know if it was a call to war or a cry of mourning.
But it sounded a lot like the sound of his own heart breaking.
- Writer
