Alpha of Ashes

Chapter 3: Wolves of Ash And Flame

The wreck occurred at dawn, when mist still hung over the floor of the forest like the breath of dozing giants.

Lucian had been pursuing the outlaw pack for three days, tailing their scent trail through the neutral territories that surrounded the Shadow Wilds. They were becoming increasingly bold, these outcasts and rogues, attacking pack territories under cover of night and vanishing back into the proscribed forest like specters. The rightful Alphas talked of creating a coalition to address the issue, but their councils yielded nothing but lofty speeches and territorial grandstanding. Somebody had to put a stop to the raiding—and if the cozy pack leaders would not sully their feet with such activity, then a former Alpha would just have to get his hands dirty.

He'd hoped to catch them cowering in some cave or forsaken fastness, divvying up their looted booty and plotting their next mark. He hadn't wanted to crash through a barricade of brambles at dead run and plow right into a she-wolf running full tilt in the other direction.

Down they crashed in a heap of arms and oaths, tumbling across dew-moistened grass to finally land with a jolt leaning up against a great oak tree trunk. Lucian sprawled across a stranger, his hands on either side of her shoulders, his mouth beside hers.

She was stunning in a rough, unbridled manner that made his wolf come alive with curiosity he'd not experienced for years. Auburn locks cascaded in waves about a face that might have graced a forest spirit—sharp cheekbones, full mouth, and eyes like amber flame. Her complexion was burnished golden from living in the constant shadow of the wilds, and she carried a muscularity that betokened one who'd learned survival by intellect and determination rather than pack safeguard.

But it was the scent that hit him like a blow, that same bolt of electric flame that he'd envisioned in his mind's eye at the wreckage. Lightning and flame and something elemental that called to every one of his instincts.

"Get off me," she snarled, and her voice carried heat like a forge, like molten metal given form.

Lucian sprang back as if scalded, rising from his seat sooner than was pleasant for him. "You—who are you?"

The she-wolf rolled gracefully upright, her movements fluid as water despite the violent collision. Her clothes were rough and patched, the garments of someone who lived hard and mended what couldn't be replaced. But she carried herself with a pride that spoke of strength hard-won, of battles fought and survived without anyone else's help.

"None of my business," she said, brushing leaves from her dark hair. Her eyes flashed across his scars, and something changed in her face—recognition, or commiseration. She knew violence by its mark on a human body. "You're a very great distance from pack lands, wolf."

"So are you." He continued to gaze at her for a moment of why his stomach was informing him that he knew her, why she seemed to call to memories that eluded his mind, like remembering a dream when you wake up. "What are you running from?"

"What do you want?" she snapped, eyes never once shifting from his face.

He gazed at her across the tiny clearing, two predators assessing each other. Lucian's wolf was agitated, torn between fear and interest. There was strength in this she-wolf, something that appealed to the inner most part of his being. But strength was a threat, and all the more so when it was packaged in such attractive form.

"Rogues," he said finally, deciding that honesty might serve better than deception. "A pack of them has been raiding the border territories. I tracked them this far before—"

"Before you decided to tackle strangers?" Her mouth quirked in what might have been amusement, the first hint of lightness he'd seen in her expression. "Stellar hunting technique."

In spite of it all—the huntsman having no beast to bring back, the shameful crash, the queasy familiarity that made his face prickle with discomfort—Lucian couldn't help but feel on the edge of a smile. When did anyone last condescend to kid him? When did anyone last speak to him with anything other than scorn or censure?

"You were running like you were being followed," he said.

The smile vanished from her face like a snuffed candle. "Perhaps something was."

Before he could ask what she meant, the sound of approaching voices reached them through the trees. Multiple wolves, moving with purpose rather than stealth, and their scent carried the metallic tang of weapons and the sour smell of old fear. Hunters, then, but not the rogues he'd been tracking.

"s**t," said the she-wolf, all of her body language changing to readiness to run away. She looked around at the clearing with that urgent quality of someone with few choices and no time to search for better ones.

"Friends of yours?" Lucian asked, but already guessing the response.

"Hardly." She was backing toward the tree line, every line of her body screaming readiness to run. "I need to go."

"Wait"

The first of the arrows erupted from the oak tree beside her head, its metal tip glinting in the light of daybreak. The she-wolf sprang to one side as two more shot through the space she had just filled, their fletching midnight black and edged with symbols that made Lucian shiver with frigid fear.

Council hunters. Official enforcers, not regular bounty hunters.

"There!" shouted someone out of the trees. "The fire-witch!" Do not let her go!"

Lucian's blood went cold. Fire-witch. The antique designation for wolves whose powers manifested as elemental flame, creatures rare enough to be considered legends of most modern packs. Creatures so ferocious that they'd supposedly been hunted to oblivion centuries before.

Or so everyone believed.

The she-wolf's hands began to glow with heat, and suddenly the electric scent in the air made perfect sense. She was the source of the strange fire-smell, the reason his wolf had been so agitated. She was the woman from his vision, the figure wreathed in golden light.

The Phoenix Wolf.

"How many?" he asked softly, his hand dropping to the knife with its silver-backed blade at his belt.

She gazed at him in amazement, as if she had not anticipated asking it. "Six. Possibly seven. Why do you—"

"Because I don't like cowards who hunt with arrows." Lucian drew his blade, the metal singing as it cleared the sheath. "And because something tells me you're not the villain in this story."

"You do not know what I am," she threatened, and she hurt with the heat and with her voice. "You do not know what I've done."

"No," he assented, dropping into a battle stance unused in three years. "But I know what they are."

The first of these parted the underbrush—a gaunt wolf with dead eyes and a crossbow that seemed professional issue. Five more followed him, equipped with the type of gear that implied Council sponsorship and official approval. They moved with the discipline of troopers, not of bandits, their line set to pin down a single target while presenting a minimum of their own coverage.

"Selene Ashwood," the leader called out, his voice carrying the flat authority of someone accustomed to being obeyed. "By order of the Wolf Council, you're under arrest for violation of the Exile Decree and the use of forbidden magic." Selene. The name fit her like a blade in a sheath, sharp and dangerous and beautiful all at once.

"I didn't violate anything," she called back, her own voice steady despite the weapons trained on her. "Your rogues attacked me. I defended myself."

"Burned them alive, more like." The hunter's lip twisted with distaste, like he'd just sampled something rotten. "There was nothing but ash and smoke from sulfur after that. Abomination."

That word—abomination—hit Lucian like a punch. He'd heard it once before, said behind his back after his pack was burned to the ground in that awful conflagration. The suggestion that he'd brought it upon his own shoulders because of some personal failing, some weakness that made him unfit to lead. The same word with which they'd justified leaving him to his grief and exile.

"Ha." He said, getting next to Selene. "I was just thinking of that word to describe you."

The eyes snapped to him, and Lucian saw recognition flash in those dead eyes. "Lucian Blackmoon. The Burned Heir." The title was said like a slur, like something foul that had to be coughed up. "This doesn't involve you."

"Someone seeking innocent wolves on neutral soil? I'd say that's of great concern to me." Lucian's hold contracted around his knife, muscle memory swamping him even after all those years of inaction. "Last I knew, the Council didn't have extradition rights over here."

" Innocent?" The huntsman laughed, his laugh like broken glass. "She's cursed, Blackmoon. Fire runs in her veins, not blood. Three rogues dead and burned to ash—this is no human's work."

"Three rogues who were hunting a child," Selene said quietly, and there was steel beneath the softness. "They died because they threatened something innocent. If that makes me a monster, then I wear the label proudly."

Lucian sensed something move inside his own chest, a perception beyond sympathy. He knew firsthand to be held accountable for violence that was not yours, to bear responsibility for other people's deaths regardless of whether you merited it or not. But it was something beyond that that he comprehended of her decision. To safeguard innocents, no matter the risk to yourself—this was to be a real Alpha.

"Stand down," he said to the hunters, releasing authority to seep back into his tone. "She's under my protection."

"You have no right to be anywhere, fallen alpha," was all the hunter said, but his tone was no longer sure now. Even after three years, after all of it, Blackmoon still carried respect with it. "You gave up the right to give orders when you let your own pack burn."

The words stung because they were true. But Lucian had carried helplessness for three years, three years of watching from the sidelines while other people made decisions that endangered innocent lives. He was done with it.

"Then we'll do it the hard way," he said.

The attack was from all sides at once, arrows and swords looking for flesh with deadly purpose. The hunters had hunted together before, knew how to organize their attack for maximum impact. But they'd made one fundamental error—they'd guessed that Lucian and Selene wouldn't cooperate, that two strangers couldn't operate like a team without advance planning.

They were mistaken.

Lucian moved like the Alpha he'd once been, his blade finding the gaps in his enemies' defenses with lethal precision. Three years of living as a rogue had honed skills that had grown soft in the comfort of leadership, taught him to fight like his life depended on it because it usually did. He was faster than the hunters expected, more vicious than his reputation suggested.

But it was Selene who really made all the difference. Fire leapt from her hands in contained blasts, not the erratic inferno he'd feared but pinpoint attacks that disabled instead of destroying. She moved like a person who'd learned to restrain, to do no more than was absolutely necessary. It was the fighting technique of one who knew his own strength and was afraid of it.

A bolt from a crossbow whizzed by his ear, close enough for him to feel the fletching in his hair. Lucian rolled to his side and stood up inside of his shooter's guard, his knife slipping into the yielding spot below his prisoner's ribs. The fellow gurgled and fell, his weapon hitting the forest floor with a clatter.

Beside him, Selene avoided a sword arc and struck back with a palm blow that made his opponent's chest smoke. The huntsman staggered out of control, struggling with the fire that would consume his leather armor.

Four of his men lay dead or motionless when it was done, and the other two had run deeper into the trees. Lucian stood out of breath in its aftermath, his knife still wet with someone else's blood. The old sensation of violence rested over him like a familiar coat, with memories of bettter days when he'd fought for something more than just to live.

"You didn't kill them," he commented, looking at the hunters that Selene had disabled. They were hurt but alive, their wounds painful but not deadly.

Selene was stamping out small conflagrations that had started to burn in the grass at her feet, their action efficient and routine. "Death finds me often enough already. I don't want to attract it."

There was pain in those words, a weariness that spoke of battles fought and innocence lost. Lucian recognized it because he carried the same burden. But where his losses had driven him to isolation, hers seemed to have made her more careful with life, more conscious of the weight of taking it.

"The Council will send more," she said without glancing at him, staring at the smouldering ash. "They always do. This was just a probing force."

"Then it's time to quit running."

She finally looked at him, and he saw the moment she realized who he was not only—a downed Alpha looking for salvation—but a fellow spirit defined by loss and betrayal.

"You don't know what you're offering," she said softly. "The fire isn't something I can control perfectly. People get hurt. People die. That's why they branded me, why they cast me out."

"And still you saved a child yesterday. You restrained yourself against these hunters when you might've slain them all." Lucian sheathed his knife, his action slow and theatrical. "You're not the monster they say you are."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I recognize what monsters are like," he said matter of factly. "And they do not risk their own lives to save innocent people."

For a moment they stood in the clearing with the unresponsive hunters and with the after-scent of smoke still hanging in it. Two outcasts, two wolves with markings of powers and fate that other wolves feared and shunned.

"My name is Selene," she said at last.

"Luc"

"I know who you are." Her voice was soft now, the anger and terror burned out of it. "The Blackmoon Alpha who lost his pack through betrayal. The Burned Heir."

"Ex-Alpha," he corrected. "Just Lucian now."

"Just Selene," she repeated.

They gazed at one another across space, and Lucian felt something that had eluded him for three endless years—hope. Not the frantic hope of a drowning man, but the comforting heat of a dream that was just possible and might just be close enough to touch.

"So," said he. "What next?" Selene looked down over felled hunters, then at him again. There was something new in her eyes, a hardness that implied decisions had been made and bridges burned. "Now we run. Together, if you meant it when you talked about protecting." "I meant it." "Good." She took a step closer, and again he smelled her—fire and determination and something that was either trust. "Because I think that we're both going to be in a lot of trouble."