Until The Last Alpha Begs

Echoes from the Mountains

POV: Freya

The chill of the night air did nothing to stop the burning beneath my skin. Every step away from the field felt like pulling a rusted needle through my veins.

Zevren’s touch still clung to me, a presence in my mind that made me want to claw my own thoughts out.

I didn't go back toward the main barracks. If I saw Rhydian right now, or the pity he was trying so hard to hide, I’d shatter completely.

Instead, I cut behind the low stone wall at the very edge of the eastern boundary, where the garden dissolved into wild, untamed briars and steep mountain drops. The shadows were deep here, thick enough to hide a ghost.

Except the shadow in front of me was breathing.

My wolf froze, dropping low and flat against the grounds of my mind.

A man was leaning against the rough stone of the perimeter wall hidden from the torchlight of the path. He was tall, his frame lean and wiry like a wolf accustomed to hunting on steep terrain.

His dark hair was pulled back tightly, exposing a sharp jawline and a pair of cold eyes that seemed to take in the torn fabric of my collar, the bruises on my hips, and the faint silver residue on my skin in a single sweep. He didn't look afraid or even look surprised.

I stepped back, my heels catching on a stray root, my hand instantly going to my stomach.

“Who's there? The guards—”

“The guards are currently tracking a phantom scent three miles down the southern ridge,” the stranger said. His voice was a low, dry rasp, stripped of any pack dialect I recognized.

It sounded like stones grinding together at the bottom of a river.

“They won't be back before the moon hits the peak.”

He stood up, straightening his spine slowly. He didn't have the arrogance of Zevren, but there was a weight to him that made the air feel thin.

“Who are you?” I whispered, my pulse knocking against my throat. “What do you want?”

“My name is Eryx Calder,” he said, taking one small step into the weak moonlight. “An enforcer from the northern mountain packs. And as for what I want... I think that depends on what you are planning to do with the storm in your chest.”

I went rigid. My hand pressed harder into my belly, my breath hitching.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Don't waste the breath,” Eryx murmured, his eyes flashing with something old and incredibly sharp. “I felt the surge from five miles out. The sky didn't just turn red tonight, Freya. The mountain lines hummed. That wasn't a wolf breaking its skin. That was a guardian's seal cracking open.”

The word hit me like a blow.

Guardian.

The same word from my mother’s letters. The same word Zevren had whispered into the dark of my mind during the binding.

“You shouldn't be here,” I rasped, looking over my shoulder toward the dark path. “Zevren... if he finds you—”

“Zevren thinks he bought a rare hound,” Eryx cut in, his mouth twisting into a hard line. “He thinks he can use his pack law to chain a well that has no bottom. He's an i***t. But he's an i***t with a lot of silver, and he isn't the only one looking for you.”

He reached into his leather vest, his fingers moving slowly so I wouldn't bolt, pulling out a small, smooth piece of black mountain slate, carved with that same split-circle mark I’d seen in Sable’s oldest sketches.

“My mentor, Oren, sent me down from the peaks three weeks ago.

“He knew the bloodline would wake when the seasons turned. He told me to find the girl with the silver eyes before the valley packs turned her into a weapon. Or a corpse.”

I stared at the black stone in his hand, my mind spinning. Sable had told me we were alone. She’d told me my mother’s secrets died with her in the lowlands. But this man... his mentor knew. There were people in the mountains who had been waiting for me to break.

“I don't know Oren,” I said, my voice shaking as I forced myself to meet his stare. “I don't know you. Why should I trust a tracker who hides in the dirt?”

“You shouldn't,” Eryx said simply, slipping the slate back into his vest. “Trust is a luxury for people who aren't carrying two extra heartbeats in an enemy camp.”

My blood went cold as the breath died in my throat.

He knows about the twins.

“But you're running out of time, Freya,” he whispered, leaning in just enough for me to smell the scent of high-altitude snow and dried cedar on his skin.

“Zevren’s binding won't hold the next moon. It will eat him alive, and then it will eat you. When you're ready to leave the cage, look for the grey smoke on the northern peak. I'll be watching.”

Before we could say another word, the air went dead as Zevren stepped out from the shadow of the broken archway. His shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his dark hair disheveled from the strain of the ritual, but his green eyes were flat, wide, and dangerous. He didn't look at me. His gaze locked onto Eryx like a crossbolt finding its target.

The tension between them hit the clearing as the sudden pressure of two apex predators occupying the exact same patch of dirt, neither willing to give an inch, both instantly measuring the distance to the other's throat.

“I thought I smelled a stray,” Zevren said, his voice dropping into that smooth, low baritone that made my skin crawl. He walked forward slowly, his boots crunching on the cracked stone tiles, his hands resting loose at his sides.

“A long way from the high peaks, aren't you, tracker?”

Eryx didn't drop into a defensive stance either. He just shifted his weight slightly, his eyes watching Zevren's approach.

“The mountains don't have fences, Alpha,” Eryx said, his voice a dry, level rasp. He didn't use Zevren's title as a sign of respect; it sounded like an insult.

“And some things can't be kept behind stone walls. You can't chain a guardian bloodline, Zevren. They are older than your laws. Older than pack politics, older than Alphas, and older than the petty ambitions you're trying to feed.”

Zevren stopped five paces away. A thin smirk parted his lips, but the expression didn't even come close to his eyes.

“Everything has a price, and everything can be owned,” Zevren murmured, leaning forward just a fraction, the weight of his Alpha authority flaring out until the remaining grass around his boots began to wither.

“Even ancient blood. Even mountain wolves who are too stupid to realize when they've trespassed too far from their dens.”

Eryx didn't answer. He just held Zevren's stare for one long, agonizing second, a silent promise passing between them in the dark, before he stepped backward into the fog and vanished over the ridge without a sound.

Zevren just stood there, his jaw clenched, staring into the empty mist before turning his gaze back to me.

×××

That night, the fever took me.

I didn't sleep so much as I drowned in the dark, and for the first time, the symbol came for me in my dreams.

The sky above was black, but it was bleeding—huge, jagged tears of liquid silver light dripping down onto a landscape made of ash.

Floating in the center of that ruined sky was the mark. A crescent moon trapped inside a thick circle, split clean down the middle by a vertical line. It burned with a cold, blinding fire that made my eyes ache even in the dream.

Standing right beneath the burning mark was my mother.

Her back was turned to me, her long white dress torn entirely open from shoulder to waist. Deep, dark gashes webbed across her pale skin, and I watched as her blood dripped steadily onto the earth, feeding the dead grass until it turned a strange, shimmering silver.

“Mom,” I tried to yell, my voice catching in my throat as I reached out for her.

She turned around slowly. Her face was exactly as I remembered it, but when she opened her mouth to speak, her own voice didn't come out.

The sound that tore through her lips was a deep, guttural, echoing roar. It was the freezing, bottomless voice of the ancient thing sleeping beneath my skin, the hunger that had leveled the garden fountain. The sound vibrated through my bones, shaking the ground beneath my feet until the silver sky began to crack.

Her eyes flooded with blinding silver light, her mouth moving in perfect synchronization with the monster inside me, and the word she whispered through the roar was simple.

“Burn.”