Chapter 4: The Echo of her Name
1195 Words
POV: Freya
The first time I killed, I didn’t feel triumphant. I felt… quiet.
Like a storm had finally settled.
The rogue’s body lay still beneath me, his throat crushed between my fingers. It was a training simulation, but he’d come at me like it was real. Daemon had told them not to hold back. If I couldn’t handle real heat, I had no place in war.
My hands were steady now, stained with mud and sweat and a little blood. The old Freya—the one who trembled before alphas and begged for affection—she would’ve flinched. She would’ve cried.
I looked down at the trembling male I’d pinned to the dirt. His chest still rose and fell. Barely.
“Yield,” I growled.
He nodded quickly, lips bloodied. “Y-yeah. I yield.”
I rose to my feet and turned without another word.
Daemon stood at the edge of the ring, arms folded. Mara beside him, grinning like a proud wolf.
“She didn’t hesitate,” Mara said.
“She’s ready,” Daemon replied.
Ready. The word echoed in my head like thunder.
I was no longer weak. No longer that rejected Luna with wide eyes and a shattered heart.
Now, I was Freya Nightfall—trained under the Rogue King himself.
And soon… I was going back to Nightfang.
That night, I sat by the fire sharpening my twin daggers—gifts from Daemon, forged with lunar steel. My hands moved on instinct now. Every action had a purpose. Every breath was calculated.
Mara dropped beside me and offered a bottle.
“You’re officially a full member of the Blackfangs,” she said, grinning. “Drink. Celebrate.”
I took it, not because I wanted to celebrate—but because this was my family now.
I took a long sip and passed it back. “How did you end up here?”
Mara’s smile faded. “I was a beta’s daughter. My mate died during a border raid, and the Alpha said it was his fault for being weak. He told me to find another mate or get out. I got out.”
I nodded. I didn’t need to say anything. I understood.
They all had stories like mine. The Blackfangs were made of the broken, the cast aside, the betrayed. And now we were weapons.
“I heard Daemon’s been planning a return to Nightfang lands,” Mara added, voice low. “Something about unfinished business.”
I met her eyes. “Good.”
Because I had unfinished business too.
POV: Kade
Her scent was gone. Completely.
It had taken weeks, but the final trace of Freya had finally disappeared from the borderlands. My wolves confirmed it. The wind carried nothing of her anymore. Not her fear. Not her grief. Not even her warmth.
It shouldn’t have affected me.
But it did.
The nights were colder now. The halls quieter.
I told myself it was better this way. That her absence meant closure.
Still… I remembered her face too well.
The way her lips trembled when I rejected her. The way she didn't scream or beg—just broke silently.
I remembered the blood on her knees as she stumbled out of the packhouse. The silence of the pack. No one had moved to stop her.
And I’d let her go.
“You asked for this,” I muttered to myself, standing at the edge of the training grounds.
Caleb had returned, arrogant as ever. He pretended nothing had happened, that Freya was a fleeting amusement.
But something told me he still burned with resentment.
“Alpha.” Steven approached with a folder. “You’ll want to see this.”
I opened it, flipping through photos.
Rogues. Patrol sightings along the eastern ridges. But not just any rogues. Blackfangs.
And in the last photo, grainy and unclear—but unmistakable…
A woman. Dressed in black leather. Hair braided down her back. Eyes like wildfire.
My heart stopped.
“Freya,” I whispered.
POV: Freya
The moon was high when Daemon called for me.
I found him at the edge of camp, where the trees thinned and the wind carried whispers from the east. He didn’t speak right away. Just stared into the distance like he was listening to something I couldn’t hear.
“Nightfang’s patrols are getting bolder,” he said finally. “They’ve seen you.”
I didn’t flinch. “Let them.”
“I thought you’d want more time before showing your face.”
“I’m done hiding.”
He turned toward me, studying my face.
“There’s talk,” he said. “Some say you’re not just after Kade. Some say you want to take back the pack.”
I met his eyes. “If I burn it down, it’ll be because it never deserved to stand.”
His lips curved slightly. “Then it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time to go back.”
The mission wasn’t revenge.
Not yet.
It was a test. A supply raid along the outer Nightfang territory. Small outposts. Nothing too bold.
But it was close enough for Kade to notice.
I moved like a ghost through the trees. Blackfang warriors at my back, their eyes gleaming in the dark.
The scent of the old territory hit me like a punch to the gut. Pines. Cold water. The scent of Kade buried beneath it all.
It made my wolf stir. Not in longing. In fury.
We found the outpost at dawn. Light creeping over the hills. Two guards, sleepy-eyed and unprepared.
No mercy.
I took down the first with a blade to the throat. Silent. Clean.
The second tried to scream. I silenced him with a strike to the jaw and a s***h across the chest.
Within minutes, it was done.
My chest heaved, not from exhaustion—but from something darker.
I liked the feeling.
Daemon joined me at the supply crates. “They’ll know it was us.”
“Good,” I said.
He handed me a flame stick. “Light it.”
I did.
And as the fire rose, painting the sky with smoke, I imagined Kade’s face when he saw the Blackfangs were no longer hiding.
And that I was no longer weak.
POV: Kade
Smoke rose in the east.
Steven ran into the war room breathless. “The eastern supply outpost. It’s gone.”
I stood slowly. “Casualties?”
“All of them.”
“And the crates?”
“Burned. Completely.”
“Was it rogues?”
Steven hesitated. “It was her.”
I looked up sharply.
He placed a scorched dagger on the table. My dagger. The one I’d once given Freya to protect herself when she first joined the pack kitchen.
She’d left it for me to find.
A message.
“She’s alive,” I murmured.
Steven nodded grimly. “And she’s not hiding anymore.”
My throat tightened. Not from fear. From something worse.
Regret.
“She’s not the same,” Steven said. “She’s become something else.”
I picked up the blade.
“No,” I whispered. “She’s become what I made her.”
- Writer
