Whispers of the Winter Wolf

Episode Eight

Part 19: The Queen's Hunt

The council chamber emptied in a wave of tense, disciplined energy. Kaelen was the first one out. She didn't look at me, but the set of her shoulders, rigid with a white-hot fury, was a message in itself. She had been publicly bested, not by a rival Beta, but by a rogue. Her loyalty to Draven was absolute, so she couldn't defy his order, but her hatred for me was now a living, breathing thing. I had not just won an argument; I had taken her place on the field, leading the most critical mission.

The other warriors filed out, their gazes on me no longer just respectful, but sharp with a new, professional curiosity. I was no longer a curiosity; I was a commander.

Valerius, the scarred scout, was the last to leave. He stopped in front of me, his one good eye assessing. "Luna," he said, the word holding a new, solid weight. "My Guard assembles at the west gate. We move in ten minutes." He didn't question the order. He didn't question my presence. My insight at the table had earned me, at the very least, his professional obedience.

I nodded. "I'll be there."

As he left, I was suddenly alone in the stone chamber with Draven. The silence was heavy, charged. I turned to go, my mind already racing, calculating routes, wind direction, and the mindset of my enemy. This was familiar territory. The hunt.

A hand shot out and clamped around my arm.

I flinched, my rogue instincts screaming, but it was Draven. He hadn't moved from his seat, but he held me fast, pulling me back to his side.

"You are afraid," he stated. It wasn't a question.

"I'm not," I said, my voice too quick. "This is what I do. I hunt. I survive."

"You are not afraid of them," he rumbled, standing. He was so close, his power a physical, heated shield. He looked down at me, his golden eyes searching my face. "You are afraid of this." He gestured to the empty chamber, the map, the weight of responsibility. "You are afraid of failing them. You are no longer just surviving for yourself, Lyra. You are fighting for a pack."

My breath hitched. He saw right through me. "They're your pack, not mine. They hate me."

"They are ours," he corrected, his voice a low, fierce growl. "And they don't hate you. They fear you. They fear the unknown. They fear the wildness you bring. And after today, Kaelen is not the only one who respects it."

He cupped my jaw, his calloused thumb stroking my cheek. The simple touch sent a jolt straight to my core. "Trust your instincts," he commanded, his voice softening. "They have kept you alive when pack law would have seen you dead. Valerius and the Guard are the best. They are my shadow and my blade. But you... you have lived in the dark. You know the shadow. Lead them."

"You're sending me into danger," I whispered, the weight of the mission, of the lives he was placing in my hands, crashing down on me.

"I am sending my Queen to protect our lands," he said, his voice raw with a possessive pride that made my knees weak. "There is no one I trust more."

Before I could process the staggering weight of that statement, he leaned in. He didn't kiss me. He did something far more intimate, more primal. He pressed his forehead to mine, closing his eyes. It was a sharing of strength, a meeting of minds, a public gesture made in private. He inhaled, and I felt the deep, rumbling purr in his chest. Mine. Mine. Mine.

"Come back to me," he murmured against my skin. It was not a request. It was the Alpha's absolute command, but beneath it, I heard the man's desperate plea.

He released me. The loss of his heat was immediate.

I didn't run. I walked, my back straight, out of the council room and toward the armory. I passed over the heavy pack-swords. They were too slow, too cumbersome, made for a strength I didn't possess. Instead, I strapped my own weapons to my new, strong leathers: a long, curved hunting blade for my back, a shorter, razor-sharp skinning knife for my boot, and a quiver of arrows for the heavy yew bow slung over my shoulder. I was not a pack warrior. I was not a rogue. I was both.

I reached the west gate. The Shadow Guard was there. Five of them, including Valerius. They were not like the other warriors. They were leaner, dressed in dark, hardened leathers that blended with the stone, their faces grim. They were silent, their energy coiled. They were killers. They all watched me, their eyes missing nothing.

Valerius held out a small, skinning-grease pot. "For your face, Luna. The moonlight is bright on the pass."

They were already prepared, their own faces smeared with black grease to cut the light. I dipped my fingers in and copied them, drawing two dark lines under my eyes and one down my jaw. I was one of them.

I looked at the five elite warriors who now, for this hunt, answered to me.

"Kaelen thinks we're going to fight a battle," I said, my voice low and cold, the voice I used to use on myself in the dark. "We are not. We are going to hunt. We move like ghosts. We bleed them. We take their food, we take their leader, and we vanish. They will not even know we are there until they are already dying."

A flicker of something—surprise, respect—passed through Valerius's good eye.

I pulled the hood of my cloak up. "No pack formations. You follow my scent, you match my step. The wind is from the north. We come at them from downwind. Let's go."

I didn't wait to see if they followed. I slipped through the gate and into the black shadows of the mountain pass, and like the ghosts Draven had named them, his Guard melted into the forest right behind me.