BLOODMOON PACT

THE COLD PART

Chapter 2:

Raina woke up with her mouth tasting like iron and snow.

The room was still quiet. Too quiet. No wolves, no fire, no sound of her pack breathing in the next room. Just the sound of her own heartbeat and the drip of water somewhere far away. For a second she thought it was all a bad dream. Then the pain in her shoulder came back and she remembered.

She was in Kael Drayce’s den.

She sat up slow, biting back a groan. The bandage on her shoulder was red at the edges. The silver poison was still there, stopping her from healing fast like a normal wolf should. Her wolf was quiet inside her, tired and angry. It felt like trying to talk to someone through a thick wall.

The door opened.

Kael walked in with two cups in his hands. He looked tired, like he hadn’t slept. His hair was messy and there was a cut on his jaw that wasn’t there yesterday. When he saw her awake, he didn’t say anything for a while. Just watched her like he was trying to figure out if she would attack him.

“Drink this,” he said, holding out one cup. “It’ll help with the poison.”

Raina didn’t move. “You trying to poison me for real this time?”

Kael’s mouth twitched. Not a smile, but close. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have pulled your body out of the snow.”

That was true. She hated that it was true.

She took the cup slowly. The liquid smelled like bitter herbs and something else she couldn’t name. It burned going down, but after a few seconds the sharp pain in her shoulder dulled a little. Not gone, but bearable.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“My father’s old safehouse,” Kael said. “It’s three hours from the border. No one knows about it except me and Mira.”

Mira. The woman with the gold eyes and the scar. The one who had cut her.

“Is she here?” Raina asked, gripping the cup tight.

“No,” Kael said. “I sent her out. She wants to kill you. I don’t trust her alone with you yet.”

“Good,” Raina muttered. “Because I want to kill her too.”

Kael sat down on the edge of the bed. Not too close, but close enough that she could see the bond mark on his arm clearly now. It looked like a black spiral, like a scar that wasn’t healing right. Hers would look the same, she knew.

“So,” she said. “What now? We sit here and wait for whoever did this to come and kill us both?”

“No,” Kael said. “We go after them.”

Raina frowned. “With one injured wolf and you? That’s suicide.”

“With one injured wolf, me, and the bond,” Kael corrected. “Whoever did this used old blood magic. It takes a lot of power. A lot of preparation. That means they’re not far. And it means they need time to do it again.”

Raina didn’t like how calm he sounded. Like this was normal for him. Maybe for him it was.

“What about my pack?” she asked suddenly. The words felt thick in her throat. “Did you… did you see what happened after?”

Kael’s face got hard. “I got there too late. The den was burning. I found Lorne. I’m sorry.”

Raina looked away, her throat felt tight, Lorne. Her little brother,he was only fifteen. He used to steal her food and blame it on the dog. She hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye.

“Don’t say sorry,” she said, her voice was rough. “Just help me find who did this.”

Kael nodded. “That’s the plan.”

He stood up and walked to the door. “We leave in an hour. Get dressed. There are clothes on the chair. They’re not fancy, but they’re clean.”

When he left, Raina let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding.

She looked at the clothes. Simple black shirt, trousers, boots. No Voss crest. No sign of who she was. It felt wrong, but she understood why. If anyone saw her wearing Voss colors, they’d kill her on sight. The Voss and Drayce war had been going on longer than she’d been alive.

She dressed slowly, wincing every time her shoulder moved. The poison was still there, but the herbs had helped. She could move without feeling like she was going to pass out.

An hour later, she was ready.

Kael was waiting outside with two horses. One black, one grey. He handed her the grey one without a word.

“You ride?” he asked.

“I can ride,” Raina said. She mounted the horse, even though her shoulder screamed at her. She wouldn’t let him see that.

Kael swung onto his horse easily. “We’re going to the old border checkpoint. If someone hired mercenaries to hit the Voss pack, there’ll be records. Blood. Someone saw something.”

“And if they didn’t?”

“Then we keep moving,” Kael said. “Until we find them.”

They rode out without another word.

The forest was different without the pack. Quieter. Emptier. Before, there would be the sound of wolves running, laughing, talking. Now it was just the sound of hooves on dirt and the wind through the trees.

Raina kept her hand close to her dagger. She didn’t trust Kael. Not really. But she trusted that he wanted to stay alive as much as she did. And right now, that was enough.

They rode for two hours without stopping.

When they reached the checkpoint, it was a mess. Burned wood, broken gates, blood on the snow. Someone had been here recently.

Kael dismounted first, checking the ground. “Three days ago,” he said. “Maybe four.”

Raina got down slower. Her shoulder was starting to hurt again. She walked around, looking at the marks on the ground. Footprints. Not many, but enough.

“Mercenaries,” she said. “They don’t cover their tracks well. They think no one will follow.”

Kael looked at her, surprised. “You can read that?”

“My father taught me,” Raina said. She knelt down, touching a boot print. “This one is too deep on the heel. He’s heavy. And he limps.”

Kael knelt beside her. For a second, they were close enough that their shoulders almost touched. Neither of them moved away.

“There’s blood here too,” Kael said, pointing to a dark spot on the snow. “Not wolf blood. Human.”

Raina nodded. “One of them got hurt. Maybe by a wolf.”

“Or maybe they turned on each other,” Kael said.

Raina stood up, brushing snow off her hands. “We follow the tracks.”

Kael stood too. “You’re sure? Your shoulder—”

“I’m fine,” Raina cut him off. She wasn’t fine, but she wasn’t going to say that.

Kael didn’t argue. He just nodded and mounted his horse.

They followed the tracks for another hour.

The snow got deeper. The wind got colder. Raina’s fingers were numb inside her gloves, but she didn’t complain. She wouldn’t give Kael the satisfaction.

Finally, the tracks led to a cave.

Kael stopped at the entrance, hand on his sword. “Stay behind me.”

Raina rolled her eyes. “I’m not a child.”

“I know,” Kael said, “but if there’s a trap, I’d rather it be me who sets it off.”

That made something weird happen in Raina’s chest. She didn’t like it.

They went inside.

The cave was dark and smelled like wet stone and blood. Raina’s wolf stirred, sensing danger. She could hear breathing ahead. Low, ragged breathing.

A man was lying on the ground, his leg torn open. He was human, but his clothes were the same black as the mercenaries who had attacked her pack.

Kael knelt beside him, pressing a hand to his neck. “Still alive.”

Raina crouched on the other side. The man’s eyes fluttered open. When he saw them, his eyes went wide with fear.

“P-please,” he whispered. “Don’t kill me.”

“Who hired you?” Kael asked, voice low and dangerous.

The man shook his head. “I don’t know. They wore masks. They paid in gold. Said to kill everyone. Leave no one alive.”

“Why?” Raina asked.

The man looked at her, and for a second, recognition flashed in his eyes. “You’re… you’re the Voss girl.”

Raina felt her stomach drop. “What did they say about me?”

“They said… they said the bond would break if you died before the Alpha,” the man whispered. “And if the Alpha died, you’d die too.”

Kael’s hand tightened on his sword.

“Who told you that?” Kael asked.

The man opened his mouth to answer.

An arrow flew through the air and hit him in the throat.

Raina reacted fast, pulling Kael down as more arrows came flying into the cave.

“Ambush!” Kael shouted, drawing his sword.

Raina grabbed her dagger, heart pounding.

They weren’t alone. And whoever was out there didn’t want them getting answers.

The fight had just started.