The Beta Who Betrayed Her Pack For the Enemy Alpha

Chapter 8 – Run, Little Beta

The forest swallowed Mistveil’s music whole.

Behind me, the dull thump of drums and voices from the main house faded under the quiet hush of pines and the soft crunch of my boots on the needle-strewn path. Moonlight dripped through the branches in thin silver ribbons.

This patrol route had a pattern. In my first life, I’d walked it a hundred times: border stone, creek bend, hollow oak, then back to the lantern-lit path and home.

Tonight, I’d deliberately broken that pattern too.

“I’ll take Kessa’s shift,” I’d told Jarek in the armory, casual as I could manage. “She’s still favoring that leg from sparring; no point sending her on the steep loop.”

He’d studied me for one long, skeptical beat, then grunted. “Fine. You veer off protocol, I’ll tan your hide myself.”

I’d smiled. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Gamma.”

Now, alone under the trees, every hair on my arms prickled.

In my first life, this route had been quiet. A fox, a couple of rabbits, the distant chorus of frogs. No hint that my world was rotting under my feet.

Tonight, halfway to the border stone, the air changed.

The scents of moss and damp earth thinned, threaded through with something else—smoke, faint and cold, and the unfamiliar spice of wolves who didn’t belong here.

I froze, dragging in a slow breath. My wolf surged to the front of my skin, ears up, nose flared.

Strangers.

Several. Moving crosswind, just outside our official patrol line.

You wanted proof, she growled. You’re about to get it.

My fingers tightened on the spear in my hand. I should turn back. Report. Do what a good Beta-in-training would do.

But every time I’d played “good” lately, it had put a knife closer to my father’s throat.

I stepped off the marked path.

The woods grew denser, underbrush tugging at my boots. The scents sharpened: pine smoke, metal, wild heather—definitely not Mistveil. Voices, low and rough, carried on the breeze.

“…said the Priestess wants a clean line. No bodies inside their border,” a male voice muttered.

“As if their Beta needs help dying,” another snorted. “She’s practically begging for it.”

Ice slid down my spine.

I crept closer, slipping between two thick trunks until the voices came from just ahead, beyond a screen of ferns.

Four wolves in dark leathers stood around a narrow game trail, just shy of our scent line. No pack insignia I recognized. Their gear was worn but well-kept, blades oiled, movements casual in the way of people who were always ready to kill.

One of them held a small vial up to the moonlight. The liquid inside glinted pale green.

My father’s evening blend.

My fingers went numb on the spear.

“She keeps refusing the rites,” the first wolf said, tucking the vial away. “If they can’t get her under willingly, the Council will… adjust. Wouldn’t be the first Beta who tripped on her own patrol and broke her neck.”

Laughter, low and ugly.

My heartbeat roared in my ears. Rage and terror tangled in my chest so tightly I could barely breathe.

This wasn’t just rot. This was an execution being scheduled like a supply run.

Enough.

I shifted my weight, ready to step out and put my spear through someone’s throat—

—and my heel snapped a dry twig in half.

Four heads whipped toward the sound.

“Who’s there?” one snarled.

“Border’s that way,” another growled, sniffing. “We’re clear. Must be—”

I stepped out of the shadows before they could finish, spear leveled, lips peeled back from my teeth.

“Must be your worst f*****g idea of the night,” I said.

For a beat, all four just stared.

Then one of them grinned, slow and wolfish. “Well, well. Beta Greyfang herself. Saves us the trouble of going hunting.”

They moved.

Two fanned out to my sides, one came straight in, the fourth melted back into the dark like smoke—a flanker.

I blocked the first strike, steel ringing on my spear’s shaft, dropped low under a swipe meant for my throat, drove my shoulder into a ribcage and heard a satisfying crack. Pain flared in my own side as a boot connected.

Too many. Too fast. I was good, but I wasn’t four-wolves-on-their-ground good.

One caught my wrist; another swept my legs. I hit the dirt hard, spear jarred from my grip. A knee dug into my chest, pinning me, cold steel kissing the skin under my jaw.

Up close, the wolf above me smelled of smoke, heather—

—and something else, darker, older. Not Mistveil. Not Council.

He smiled down at me, eyes sharp in the moonlight.

“Run, little Beta,” he murmured. “That’s what you should’ve done.”

A shadow moved at the edge of my vision.

Another scent hit me—storm-wind and wild pine, iron and dusk.

A voice, low and dangerous, cut through the night.

“Get off her.”

The weight on my chest went rigid.

The wolves around us stilled.

Out of the dark stepped a man I’d only ever heard about in whispered warnings and threat-tales told to pups who snuck out past curfew.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dark hair tousled by the wind, eyes like chips of cold amber that caught every sliver of moonlight.

Duskhowl’s Alpha.

Cassian Darkwind.

He took in the scene with one slow sweep: the blade at my throat, the stolen vial at the bastard’s belt, the Mistveil border stone ten paces away.

Then his gaze locked on mine.

“So,” he said softly, something disturbingly like amusement in his eyes. “This time you came to me on your own, Mistveil.”