Cast Out by My Mate, Crowned by the Moon

Chapter 18 – Trials by Cub

I should have known the pups wouldn’t leave the word “sanctuary” alone.

By the next morning, it had already become a game. Nyssa called it “Trials by Cub.” Orric called it “a migraine in development.” Vela just muttered about “training opportunities” and started keeping score.

I found out when I stepped out of my shelter and nearly tripped over a row of very solemn children blocking the path.

Rian stood at the front, chest puffed out, a strip of red cloth tied around his arm like some kind of badge. Lysa hovered just behind him, eyes bright. Three smaller pups flanked them, all trying and failing to look intimidating.

“State your business,” Rian demanded.

I blinked. “Getting breakfast?”

He frowned, consulted a scrap of bark where someone—judging by the handwriting, Nyssa—had scrawled a list.

“Section three,” he read, tongue between his teeth. “‘Sanctuary provides food, rest, and safety to those in need.’” He looked up. “Are you in need, Liora Wolfscar?”

Behind him, Lysa whispered, not quietly, “She always looks like she needs sleep.”

“I can hear you,” I told her.

She shrugged, unrepentant.

“What is this?” I asked Rian.

“Security test,” he said importantly. “Nyssa says a sanctuary is only as good as its gate. We’re the gate. You have to say the right words to get in.”

Nyssa, lounging upside down on a low branch with a piece of dried fruit in her teeth, waggled her fingers at me. “They’re roleplaying,” she said. “Council sessions, but with less snoring.”

Teren, who’d arrived late last night and was currently sipping something steaming by the fire, sniffed. “I do not snore.”

“Sure you don’t, old man,” Nyssa grinned.

Rian cleared his throat. “Liora. Are you in need of sanctuary services?”

I eyed him. The whole thing was ridiculous. It was also… uncomfortably on point.

“Yes,” I said. “I need breakfast, seating, and a minimum of three cups of something hot and not herbal.”

The pups conferred. One of the smaller ones, a girl with hair like a dandelion puff, piped, “Ask her the second question.”

Rian nodded gravely. “Second question: Are you bringing danger with you?”

My smile faded.

“What kind of danger?” I asked carefully.

“Bad wolves,” Lysa said. “Ones who think Maelor is cool. Ones who like hurting people on purpose. Ones who make healers cry.”

My chest tightened. “Not on purpose,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure they’ll come whether I walk through this path or not.”

The children exchanged a look at that, out of their depth.

Nyssa flipped down from the branch, landing lightly. “That,” she said, “is exactly what we’ve been talking about in boring grown-up language.”

“Hey,” Orric protested from his hut. “My language is very exciting. It has terms like ‘liability’ and ‘inter-jurisdictional cooperation.’”

“See?” Nyssa said.

Rian chewed his lip. “So if you’re not bringing them on purpose, but they might follow… does that mean we say no?”

His question was simple. The answer wasn’t.

“That’s what sanctuaries are for,” came Sorren’s voice, warm and steady, as he approached. “Taking in the ones danger chases. Drawing lines for those who want to cause it.”

He knelt so he was level with Rian, cloak falling around him in dark folds. “What did we decide yesterday about wolves who come here hunted?”

“That we help,” Rian recited. “If they follow the rules.”

“And how do we make sure they know the rules?” Sorren asked.

Lysa bounced. “We tell them! Loudly.”

“Exactly.” He looked at me, one brow arched in silent question.

I nodded once.

“Rian,” Sorren said. “Let her pass. But ask her the third question. The one you came up with.”

Rian straightened, suddenly serious. “Right,” he said, turning back to me. “Third question: If the bad wolves come because of you, will you run away to keep us safe?”

The air left my lungs.

That was the crux, wasn’t it? The thing that had kept me up more nights than Maelor’s shadow. The fear that one day I’d wake to find blood in the snow and know it was there because some fanatic wanted to make a point with my body.

“I…” My throat closed.

The pups watched me, unblinking.

Behind them, Wildcrest watched too. Quietly. Vela with her arms crossed, expression unreadable. Orric, leaning in the doorway. Nyssa, hands in her pockets, eyes sharp. Teren, pretending not to care but listening with Council ears.

Sorren didn’t say anything. He didn’t rescue me. He just stood there, presence at my back like a wall I could choose to lean on.

I crouched so I was eye-level with Rian and Lysa.

“When I was your age,” I said slowly, “if danger came because of me, my Alpha decided for me. He threw me out to make the problem go away.”

Rian’s jaw dropped. Lysa scowled. “That’s cheating,” she said.

“It was,” I agreed. “It hurt. It almost killed me. And it didn’t actually fix anything.”

Snowflakes caught in Rian’s lashes. “So what will you do here?”

My heart pounded.

“I won’t run,” I said, feeling each word settle like a stone. “Not by myself. If danger comes for me, it comes for all of us. And we face it together. Or,” I added, because I’d promised myself never to become the thing I’d fought, “if my staying ever puts you at more risk than my going, we talk about it. All of us. Not just one Alpha throwing decisions like bones.”

Lysa thought that over, then nodded firmly. “Talking is a rule,” she said. “Orric wrote it.”

“On pain of listening to him lecture for hours,” Nyssa muttered.

Rian’s frown eased. “Okay,” he said at last. “You can come in.”

He stepped aside. The little ones parted, suddenly just children again and not tiny, earnest gatekeepers of the world.

As I straightened, Sorren’s gaze met mine over their heads—warm, proud, a little raw.

“That was a better answer than most Alphas manage in three councils,” Teren said grudgingly.

“I had good teachers,” I said. “And terrible examples.”

The camp breathed around us. Smoke, snow, stew. Pups bolting off now that their “duty” was fulfilled. Nyssa already spinning the whole exchange into some wildly exaggerated story for later.

I stepped past the invisible line the children had made and into the heart of Wildcrest’s clearing.

Sanctuary, I thought, not as a grand, shining idea, but as a series of small, stubborn choices.

Not never being afraid.

Not never being hunted.

Just… not having to face it alone.