Exiled Wolf, Fated Luna

Chapter 8 – The Wrong Turn

The woods are softer here than in Hollowpeak.

Less rock, more loam. The path behind the pack house dips between mossy roots, pine needles muffling our steps. Late light slants through the branches, turning dust motes to gold.

“This is the safe loop,” Tharos says, voice gravelly. “Stays inside the inner markers. You don’t cross those without someone who can shift and fight. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Neri chirps.

Milo nods, serious. I murmur something that could be agreement.

I hadn’t planned to come. Then Neri knocked on my door with muddy boots and a breathless, “Tharos says we can show you the pretty trees if you promise not to die,” and somehow sitting in my room counting ceiling cracks felt worse.

So now I’m here. One big warrior, two pups, and one wrong wolf.

“You smell that?” Tharos asks after a while.

I inhale. Damp earth. Old leaves. A faint sweetness from something blooming low to the ground. Under it, the steady, familiar pulse of Grimvale’s territorial scent, sunk deep into bark and soil.

“Home,” Neri says happily.

Milo’s shoulders loosen. “Smells like us.”

To my surprise, my almost‑wolf hums in quiet agreement.

We follow the path another ten minutes, then Tharos lifts a hand. “Stop.”

Up ahead, a narrow ravine cuts across the trail. A rotting wooden footbridge spans it—more planks than structure, grey and sagging.

Neri bounces forward. “Can we—”

“No,” Tharos and I say at the same time.

His mouth twitches. “You two stay here,” he orders the kids. “I’ll check if it’s worth fixing or burning.”

He steps onto the first plank, weight testing each board as he goes.

The air shifts.

Not the wind. Something else. A prickle at the back of my neck, the faintest ripple across my senses, like distant static.

Fear.

Not ours.

I stiffen. “Wait.”

Tharos glances back. “What?”

“There’s someone—” I turn slowly, scanning the trees. No shapes, no sounds. But the feeling is there, thin and sharp: a lone, ragged thread of panic just beyond the edge of what I can clearly touch.

“On the path?” he asks, already reaching for his radio.

“Not close,” I say. “Farther. Left.” I point without thinking. “Like… there.”

His eyes narrow. “Stay with them.”

He moves back off the bridge, coming to stand in front of Neri and Milo. “You don’t run,” he tells them, voice edged. “You stay with Vexa. No matter what you hear. Understood?”

Neri’s grin is gone. She nods, eyes huge. Milo swallows hard.

“Tharos—” I start. “Should we head back?”

“Not until I know what’s out there.” He lifts his chin, nostrils flaring. “I’ll be in earshot. If anything moves toward you, you yell.”

Then he’s gone, melting into the trees with a speed that makes a lie of his size.

Silence drops, heavy.

I breathe, slow and steady. The fear‑thread is clearer now that I’m paying attention. It flutters at the edge of my reach, not closer, not farther. Trapped. Cornered.

“Is it rogues?” Neri whispers, pressing into my side.

“Probably just a lost deer,” I lie. “Tharos will check.”

Minutes stretch. The forest’s usual noises creep back in—distant birds, the rustle of small things in the underbrush. No wolf howls. No alarm.

My shoulders start to unknot.

Then something tugs at the bond.

Not the mate bond. The other thing. The strange, tenuous web I’ve begun to feel under my skin—the one that vibrates with the emotions of this land.

A sharp spike of terror hits me like a slap.

Not out there.

Behind us.

I spin.

Milo is on the bridge.

He’s halfway across, sneakers sliding on damp wood, eyes huge, breath coming in fast little gasps. One small hand clutches the rope railing; the other stretches toward something only he can see in his head.

“Milo!” My voice comes out higher than I’d like. “Stop. Come back.”

“I—I wanted to see,” he stammers, voice shaking. “Like you did. I can’t be scared forever—”

The board under his foot cracks.

Time fractures.

“Neri, don’t move,” I snap, already lunging forward. “Stay there.”

The ravine yawns under Milo as the plank gives way. He drops with a choked cry, fingers scrabbling for purchase on the edge.

I hit the end of the bridge on my knees, wood biting through denim. My hands shoot out on instinct, closing around his wrists just as his lower body disappears into air.

His weight jerks my shoulders hard enough to send white pain down my arms. The rest of the boards groan ominously.

There is nothing under my feet.

“Got you,” I gasp, lying through my teeth. “I’ve got you, Milo. Don’t look down.”

He looks down.

His whole body convulses, terror blasting through him and straight into me. For a second it’s all I can feel—his certainty that he’s going to fall, to die, to disappear into the dark.

My arms shake. The rotten wood under my knees creaks, cracks spiderwebbing out.

“Vexa!” Neri screams from the bank. “Tharos!”

No answer.

I dig my fingers in until my nails cut his skin. My muscles scream.

“Breathe with me,” I say, voice raw. “In. Out. Milo, look at me.”

He drags his gaze up, pupils blown wide.

“You’re not—” My arms tremble. My wolf slams against the inside of my ribs, not in fear this time, but in fury. “You are not falling. Do you hear me?”

The bridge shudders.

Something else moves in the trees.

A heavy, deliberate crack of underbrush, too loud to be Tharos. The air shifts, sour and wrong.

And a scent rolls over us, thick and oily and familiar from every nightmare story Hollowpeak ever whispered about the monsters in the dark.

Rogue.

Not just any rogue.

Under the stench of unclaimed rage and old blood is a trace of something colder. Metal. Chemicals. The ghost of sterile rooms and restraints.

Helix.

Branches part on the far side of the ravine.

A pair of yellow eyes gleam out of the shadows, locking straight onto me—

—and the plank under my left knee splinters.