CHAPTER 39
1624 Words
The next morning crept in softly, but Elise didn’t rise with it.
She moved gently, her eyes fluttering open to the dull light sunlight in the sky which looked like it was going to rain.
Her back ached, and her neck felt stiff from sleeping in a curled position on the edge of the cot, but she didn’t complain.
Kai was still beside her, sitting on the floor against the wall, arms folded across his chest, head slightly tilted as if he’d dozed off while thinking overnight.
She watched him for a moment—his breath even, lashes resting lightly on bruised skin.
He had some cuts and bruises on bus face, hands and legs, but he didn't seem to care about it as his only concern was Lucien at the moment.
She wondered how he was feeling inwardly.
He looked tired, but not just from lack of sleep.
It was the kind of exhaustion that came from carrying the weight of too much responsibility, too much pain.
She knew it herself, one could see it from afar.
And Kai wasn't even the type to show his pain or how tired he was, so the fact that it was evident shower Elise all she needed to know.
She didn’t move yet.
The peace was delicate, like glass in her hands, and she didn’t want to be the first to drop it.
But of course, peace never lasted long in the packhouse.
There was a soft knock at the door.
Kai jolted awake instantly, alert, like he hadn’t been sleeping at all.
Elise sat up as well, while looking at Kai, with a worried expression on her face.
The knock came again, with more force this time.
Kai stood and walked to the door to answer it.
When the door creaked open, Beta Torin stood there, face grim.
“Sorry to disturb you,” he said, his voice low. “But we need you both. Now.”
Elise stood up, ignoring the stiffness in her limbs. “What happened?”
Torin hesitated.
His eyes darted briefly to her, then back to Kai. “The scouts found something in the forest. Not far from where Lucien was attacked.”
Kai’s body tensed. “What?”
“A body,” Torin said. “Or what’s left of it.”
They rode out quickly, Kai and Elise both in black cloaks, following the scent markers Torin had left behind.
The air outside was colder today.
The trees seemed taller somehow, their branches like arms reaching down instead of up.
They stopped at a clearing.
The earth was uneven, muddied from the recent rain, and near the center, something was covered with a dark cloth.
Two scouts were nearby, quiet and alert.
Torin lifted the cloth gently.
Elise stepped forward, expecting the worst—
But even that didn’t prepare her.
The body was mangled, flesh torn in irregular lines, like it had been clawed at by something frantic.
The face was unrecognizable, but the torn remains of clothing, a necklace, and a familiar scar gave it away.
“It’s Nora,” one of the scouts said quietly.
Nora.
One of the younger warriors.
A girl Elise had trained with.
“No,” Elise whispered.
“She was just at the armory two days ago—she—she made a joke about sharpening blades. She—”
Kai rested a hand on her shoulder. “I know.”
The marks weren’t like feral wolf attacks.
They were crueler.
Messier.
“What could’ve done this?” she asked, voice breaking.
Torin answered grimly, “Something that didn’t want to kill fast. Something that wanted to scare us.”
Kai knelt beside the body, his fingers brushing a deep mark carved into the girl’s chest.
A symbol.
One Elise had only seen once before—burned into the ruins of an old village long gone, long forgotten.
“This isn’t just a warning,” Kai said. “It’s a message.”
Back at the packhouse war room,
The elders gathered quickly once the body was brought back and laid on the altar in the temple.
Elise sat beside Kai in the war room, her knee bouncing, fingers clasped tightly together.
Miriah sat across from them, brow furrowed. “It’s ritualistic,” she said. “I’ve seen marks like that before… but not in this generation. Not since the Blood Moons.”
“The Blood Moons?” Elise asked. “I thought those were just stories.”
Miriah shook her head. “No. They were real. And the darkness that came with them didn’t disappear. It just hid.”
A silence fell.
Kai was the first to break it.
“They’re hunting us.”
“Who?” Torin asked.
“Whoever marked Lucien, and now Nora,” Kai said. “Whoever’s leaving bodies for us to find.”
Elise felt it in her bones—the same feeling she’d had in her dreams. That crawling, cold dread.
“They’re trying to pull us apart from the inside,” she said.
Miriah nodded. “They’re testing us. Seeing how much fear it takes before we break.”
That Night,
Elise walked alone after the meeting, her cloak wrapped tightly around her.
The moon was barely visible behind thick clouds, and each step felt like a weight.
Her thoughts circled the same point—Nora.
Lucien.
The mark.
The dream.
There was something she wasn’t seeing, something buried deeper.
She ended up at the old training grounds.
The place was quiet now, the usual chatter of young wolves long gone.
Elise walked to the center and sat down, legs crossed, letting her mind settle.
And then, it came again.
Not sleep.
Not a dream.
A memory.
Flashback
She was back at the academy.
A younger Elise, maybe eleven, knelt beside another girl—Mira.
Mira was sobbing, her body trembling with fear.
Her hands were shaking, and Elise was wiping blood from her friend’s nose.
“They’re going to hurt me,” Mira whispered. “I saw something. I wasn’t supposed to, Elise.”
“What did you see?” Elise whispered back.
Mira clutched her wrist. “A symbol….A ritual….One of the elders. They said it was for power… that the old blood needed to return.”
At the time, Elise didn't understand what she meant, nor did she know what she was supposed to say as she wasn't given the opportunity to learn whatever concerned wolves since she didn't have one.
Elise had forgotten this.
Forgotten how Mira had vanished just days after.
How no one ever spoke of her again.
Now it returned with force.
Like a puzzle piece she didn’t know was missing.
Back in the Present,
She gasped, heart pounding.
Someone had been practicing dark rites even back then.
Someone still was.
She sprinted back to the packhouse, not waiting for the guards, not stopping for air.
When she reached Kai’s quarters, she banged on the door, breathless.
He opened it quickly, surprised. “Elise?”
She didn’t wait.
She rushed in, hands shaking. “I remembered something. From school, from before.”
Kai closed the door and followed her. “Tell me.”
So she did.
Every detail.
The blood.
The symbol. Mira.
“She vanished,” Elise said. “And they said nothing. Just like now. They’re hiding something. This isn’t new, Kai—it never ended.”
He looked at her with a seriousness she hadn’t seen since the council trial. “You think one of the elders…?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But they’re covering something up.”
Kai paced. “And if that’s true, this won’t stop at Lucien or Nora.”
“No,” Elise said. “It won’t stop until we find the one who started it all.”
She looked up at him, gaze clear.
“We need to go to the archives.”
He blinked. “That’s locked off. Even to alphas.”
“We’ll find a way in,” Elise said, voice cold. “Whatever this is—we’re going to expose it.”
He nodded slowly.
And just like that, the quiet they had built shattered under the truth they had buried for too long.
They weren’t just healing from wounds anymore.
They were heading straight into war.
Later that night, after Elise had finally drifted into an uneasy sleep, Kai slipped away and made his way back to the Healer’s Wing.
The halls were dim, lit only by the faint blue glow of night lanterns.
Lucien lay still on the cot, his breathing shallow, his skin pale beneath the fresh bandages.
Miriah stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, eyes tired but sharp.
“He’s stable,” she said quietly, not looking at Kai. “But that’s all I can promise right now.”
Kai stepped closer, the weight of her words already pressing down. “He’s not getting better?”
Miriah finally met his eyes. “The wound was laced with something unnatural. Whatever attacked him didn’t just want to kill—it wanted to leave a mark. His body is fighting, but…” she hesitated. “There’s a chance he might not fully heal. Not the way we’re hoping.”
Kai stared at Lucien, the ache in his chest dull and constant.
He nodded once, jaw clenched.
“Will he be fine?” he asked, voice breaking.
“I don't know…” she replied while sighing.
“I’ll stay,” he murmured, pulling up a stool beside the bed.
Miriah didn’t argue.
She just walked away, leaving Kai to sit in silence beside his brother—his friend, while praying for strength neither of them had left to give.
- Writer
