The Beta Who Betrayed Her Pack For the Enemy Alpha

Chapter 20 – Offer in the Shadows

We left Mistveil at dusk.

The sky was a smear of bruised purple, the first stars peeking through as the gates closed behind us with a heavy thud. Eight warriors in formation, plus one emissary, one priestess, and one allegedly “compromised” Beta at the front.

If Serapha wanted a show, we were giving her one.

“Standard wedge,” Jarek called. “Halvar, Coren, you’re left flank. Kessa, Varn, right. Two scouts ahead, two rear. Beta in the center with me. Our honored guests stay where I can see them.”

Lucien smiled, amused. Sister Ilyra inclined her head silently, quill and small leather-bound book already in hand.

“Recording,” Kessa mouthed at me with an eye roll.

I snorted and took my place.

We moved into the trees at a steady lope, the rhythm of paws and boots on earth settling into my bones. For a while, it almost felt like any other patrol—banter low, senses open, the comforting awareness of pack bodies around me.

Almost.

I could feel Lucien’s gaze on my back like a cold draft. Ilyra glided near the rear, quietly noting route markers, weather, formation changes. Observing everything. Judging.

An hour in, we reached the fork where the usual trade route veered right toward the river road.

Jarek lifted a hand. “We cut left,” he said. “Shorter path through the ravine. Council wants efficiency.”

My hackles rose.

“That ravine is a choke point,” I said. “Limited visibility, easy for an ambush. We usually only take it with two extra squads.”

Lucien’s voice floated forward, mild. “The Council has reviewed your patrol reports. There have been no incidents there in years. It is the most direct path.”

“‘No incidents in years’ is exactly what someone says before a very big incident,” Kessa muttered under her breath.

Jarek’s jaw tightened. “Orders are orders.”

I met his eyes. We both remembered Redmere. The stories. The “accidents.”

“Then we double the scouts,” I said. “And we go in hot. No lazy walking. We move like we expect trouble.”

Something like respect flickered across his face.

“Fine,” he said. “You heard your Beta. Eyes up. No heroics.”

We cut left.

The ravine swallowed us quickly—high rock walls on either side, the path narrowing to a single, twisting trail. The air cooled. Sound changed, every step bouncing back in faint echoes.

“Love what they’ve done with the murder corridor,” Kessa whispered near my shoulder.

“Shut up,” Halvar hissed. “You’ll jinx it.”

“I don’t believe in jinxes,” she said. “I believe in idiots who think we don’t see them.”

She wasn’t wrong.

The scent hit me halfway through the second bend: cold iron, oiled leather, and that same faint trace of temple incense under sweat.

Not ours.

“Stop,” I snapped.

Too late.

Figures dropped from the ledges above us—three, four, five—cloaks turning to knives in midair. Arrows whistled from the shadows; one slammed into the dirt where Lucien had been standing a heartbeat before.

“Shields!” Jarek roared. “Form up!”

Chaos exploded.

My wolf surged, vision sharpening, time stretching. I saw it all in shards:

Kessa yanking Varn out of an arrow’s path with a curse. Halvar pivoting too slow, catching a blade along his arm. Coren slamming his shoulder into an attacker’s ribs. Sister Ilyra pressed against the rock wall, eyes wide but hands steady as she tucked her book away and drew a slim knife from her sleeve.

And through it all, Lucien—moving like he’d been expecting this, slipping between blades with infuriating grace.

Not surprised.

Not quite pleased, either.

Annoyed. Like someone had moved too early on a chessboard.

A knife flashed toward my side. I blocked with my forearm, pain flaring, then buried my own blade in the attacker’s thigh. He went down with a howl.

“Council colors!” Coren shouted, ducking another swing. “They’re wearing Council marks!”

He was right. A glint on a chest guard, a stylized moon-and-cut sigil half-hidden under leather.

They weren’t even pretending not to be here.

“They’re testing you,” Wren’s voice echoed in my head. See how you break.

“Jarek!” I yelled, parrying another strike. “We push forward, we’re dead. Pull back to the last bend. Narrow their approach.”

For a heartbeat he hesitated—Gamma instincts warring with the ingrained urge to follow top-down orders.

Then his eyes cleared.

“Fall back!” he barked. “Controlled retreat! Greyfang, cover! Halvar, you’re second wall!”

We moved as one—stumbling, bleeding, but not breaking. Step by step, we gave ground, compressing our formation until the ravine pinched narrower behind us. Arrows thunked into rock where our bodies had been seconds before.

A blade kissed my ribs, hot and shallow. I snarled, drove my attacker back with a flurry of strikes.

One of the Council wolves laughed, breathless.

“Look at that,” he called. “The little Beta can dance. Pity she’s not on tonight’s list.”

Cold sank into my bones.

Tonight’s list.

“How many names?” I snarled, slamming my shoulder into his chest. “How many ‘corrections’?”

He grinned, teeth red. “Enough.”

My blade found his throat.

Blood sprayed, hot and metallic, across my hand.

The ravine shook.

No—not the ravine. A deep, rolling growl thundered from behind us, out beyond the mouth of the gorge. A sound that didn’t belong to any Mistveil wolf.

My heart lurched.

Duskhowl.

“Took you long enough,” Kessa panted, eyes widening as a dark shape loomed at the far edge of the path.

For an instant, all I saw was silhouette: broad shoulders, tall frame, wolves fanning out behind him like shadows with eyes.

Cassian.

He stood at the ravine’s mouth, just beyond Mistveil’s formal border, flanked by half a dozen of his pack. The wild stink of them cut through Council incense like a knife.

“What an interesting congregation,” he said, voice echoing off stone. “Council hunters on one side, Mistveil’s best and brightest on the other. Someone forgot to send me an invitation.”

Lucien swore softly under his breath.

Sister Ilyra’s eyes flashed, knife lifting in a defensive grip.

The Council wolves faltered, torn between target and new threat.

Cassian’s gaze found me through the chaos.

“This,” he called, clear and cold, “is the part where you decide whose game you’re playing, Beta.”

He lifted one hand, palm up, as if offering me something invisible.

Behind me, Kessa hissed, “Lyris—”

Ahead, a Council hunter lunged, blade raised.

And for the second time in as many weeks, I stood between my pack’s line and Duskhowl’s shadow, the weight of a choice pressing down like a falling sky.