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068 | CAST IN SHADOW
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56
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Alpha Ares 069 | HAILE SEREN BLUE
I stilled for less than a second, though it felt like an eternity as my gaze met theirs. Two wolves, both smaller than me, but bigger than Annia, both with shaggy coats of speckled grey fur, stared back.Annia trembled. I ran my tongue over the back of my teeth as I thought. There had to be another way out of this. They hadn’t yet pounced – so maybe they wouldn’t.Forcing my limbs to relax, I nodded to the grey wolves and continued strolling across the open expanse of snow. Fortunately, Annia caught on quickly and, though she kept her body mostly hidden behind my much larger one, she kept pace and kept her head up. Good. I knew every wolf in Blue Moon on sight; I could pick out an Omega or Warrior Wolf from their peers from half a league away. As Young Luna, knowing my pack inside and out had been part of my job. As we walked, I kept my fingers crossed – my paws crossed? – that Greyhide Canyon’s lower-ranking wolves wouldn’t know everyone on their roster, or at least not in their wolf
Alpha Ares 070 | WILDFLOWER MEADOWS
I clutched the knife – the knife that had been imbedded in my gut – and leapt at them. There was a sort of poetic justice to it, I thought.It was easy – too easy – to kill the Greyhide Canyon wolves. They hadn’t expected me to attack them in my human form. I moved without thought, my body falling into years of training and pure animal instinct. Now that Annia was safe, there was nothing to hold me back. No person for them to hold hostage, or for me to keep an eye on. I sliced the blade over their necks, my elbow jarring as I shoved through the thick fur and skin of the grey wolf; my mind was not with my body as I moved, though. It was a flashing red haze of panic. I thought only of Ares, alone and injured with Cendres.They fell to the ground. Blood seeped across the white snow, filling the divots where our paws and boots had churned it up. ‘Describe it to me,’ I mindlinked to Ares. ‘I’ll find you.’Although I was exhausted, my muscles drooping, held up limply by posts of bone and
Alpha Ares 071 | GAMMA WOLF
‘He left?’ I nudged Annia again, pushing her into a sprint. My muscles protested, but my urgency pushed me onward. ‘Why?’Ares didn’t reply.‘Ares?’ I tried again. And again. And again.Nothing.I ran hard, ignoring every ache and creak of my joints, ignoring the pulsing of blood pounding against my ears, my temples, and thundering against my still-seeping knife wound. We met the path without difficulty, and I turned blindly around the first corner – And ran straight into Cendres.I smashed into the rocky side of the path. My head knocked back; lights danced across my vision, but I clutched at consciousness desperately and managed to hold on. As my vision centred, two brown wolves became one, and I stared hard at Cendres as I pulled myself shakily to my paws.His eyes narrowed – and then he flung his head back and grinned. He made a wolfish laugh, a rumbling sound deep in his chest, and then shifted into his human form. Like Annia and I, his eyebrows, eyelashes, and the baby hairs a
Alpha Ares 072 | DAYLIGHT
I leapt to my feet. “Try,” I snarled, “and I will kill you, Cendres.” My hand reached uselessly for a knife that wasn’t there, but I shoved my fingers under my cloak and clenched my hand into a fist, making a lump beneath the fabric to create the illusion of a weapon there.He held both of his hands up, palms facing forward. “I have no intention of doing as he says. You can trust me. Why would I come all this way to patch up Ares’s wounds if I was just going to kill him anyway?”I huffed. “I guess.” Lowering myself back to the ground, I kept my narrowed eyes on the Gamma the whole way down. I still half expected him to shift and rip Ares’s head clean from his shoulders, but I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. For now, at least.“I know he wants me dead,” I said flatly. “Me. But not Ares.”“Like I said – I look at Naz, and I don’t even see my mate looking back at me anymore. He’s gone. Losing his parents last year changed him, but not… Not like this.”The memory of the matching
Alpha Ares 073 | VALERIA
I stilled, my body locking in place as I stared down at her. And then she groaned.I crouched down beside her. “Valeria?” I whispered, twisting at my waist and searching the pathway for her attacker. They had to still be close – too close. But there was nobody, not along the path or on the rocky outcrops above. I was hyper-aware of sound and movement as I brushed my fingertips over Valeria’s bloody muzzle. Her eyelids fluttered.She squeezed her eyes shut, her face contorting in pain, and then she shifted into her human form. “Ares – needs to – initiate you – into the – pack.” Her breaths sounded wet. I kept my gaze fixed on her face, purposefully ignoring the steadily growing pool of red spilling out from beneath her. “Not being able – to mindlink – is a real – pain.”My lips twitched. Valeria had been one of very few wolves that I’d been able to train with back in Winterpaw Warrior. Everyone else had wanted to kill me, and our fights have ended up bloody and brutal every time. But
Alpha Ares 074 | FOLLOWING A TREMBLING STAR
We raced across Greyhide’s snow-slick terrain. As we’d agreed, I sprinted with Ares on my back, never once looking behind me, letting Cendres and Annia fight off any attackers we faced on the way. I wanted to help them, but keeping Ares safe was my priority.I’d never been so damned excited to see a canyon before. Hoping to the stars and sun and moon and everything in the world that Cen and Annia would catch up with me, that they would both meet me when we were in safer territory, I surged along the side of the canyon. The sun rose and fell, and still I ran.‘You need to rest, beautiful,’ came Ares’s voice through the mate bond.‘Not until you’re safe,’ I replied, every time.‘You were hurt, too.’‘Not badly. Even the knife wound is healed now.’‘Yeah.’ His mental voice was thick with disbelief. ‘So you say.’It was true. Mostly. ‘I’ll stop when we can. But we’re still well within Greyhide’s borders.’‘Even Winterpaw Warrior territory won’t be safe. You were attacked in Blue Moon bef
Alpha Ares 075 | WARPATH
For the first time in my life, I knocked on the door of my own family’s Pack House. It felt wrong, but as the silence swelled, deafening in its potency, I felt like I had to. Rather than entering my family home as I always had, suddenly the idea of pushing open the door and just walking in felt like I was intruding. Like I was an outsider.Part of me expected to find nobody. Another, darker part of me expected to find bodies. I blinked away images of Valeria, of the wolves that had been piled on top of her, and shuddered. I could hear the ever-present lapping of waves in my right ear and Ares’s laboured breathing. I strained my hearing; had I imagined that groan of wood just inside the door?And then the door creaked open.“Mum?” I breathed, squinting into the hallway. She peered around the thin crack she’d opened it to, her eyes widening as she saw me – and then narrowing as they fixed on Ares.She yanked the door open so fast I didn’t react. I couldn’t. “You bastard,” she snarled,
Alpha Ares 076 | FOREVER CHANGED
I drifted through the familiar rooms, traipsing away from my parents as we reached the long dining hall that the wake was being held in. None of the places or people looked real to me. It didn’t even look like my Pack House anymore. People greeted me, but not as their favoured Young Luna anymore. Not as the bright and bold child, or the sharp and smart young woman, that I had been to them before I’d gone to the Winterpaw Warrior Pack to be with Ares.Five wolves were dead. On top of the ten already killed. Aliana had told me about six; another four had been taken in that time. I traced their names in my mind, picturing their faces, mourning each and every one of them. My eyes glazed as I stared at different parts of the room, seeing plates of finger food and steaming mugs of tea and coffee and half-drunk glasses of berry wine, glancing over them without taking any of it in. Families clutched each other and cried. People spoke loudly of their memories of the wolves that had died. Four
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Alpha Ares 141 | EPILOGUE
One year later I smoothed my hands down over my thick cloak. Nerves swarmed in my belly: not the dizzying kind that made me feel faint, but the sort that cast a hazy glow over everything as I walked along the winding woodland pathway. Torches flickered every few feet; orange roses of light bloomed across the mossy, dew-damp earth beneath my boots. “Nervous?” asked Dad. “A little.” I worried my bottom lip between my teeth. “It’s silly, I know. There’s nothing to be nervous about. I’ve been his Luna for the last year – longer, really – but this feels…” I trailed off, unsure how to word exactly how it felt. Official? Real? “It’s been such a long time coming, sweetheart.” “Yeah. Part of me wishes we’d done this straight after the battle, but it made sense to wait until the pack was remade.” Unable to help myself, a grin pushed hard at my cheeks. Everything looked beautiful today, I thought, the pine trees bottle-green beneath the golden setting sun. Everything was glazed with the
Alpha Ares 140 | COME TOGETHER
As everyone took their seats, Ares and I remained standing. I clutched at his hand: it was a physical reminder to everyone there that we were joined, that Winterpaw Warrior and Blue Moon were enemies no longer.I glanced at Ares, letting him take the lead. He swallowed, straightened his shoulders, and then smiled hesitantly around at everyone. The expression looked strange, uncertain, and it took me a moment to realise why. Ares never smiled at people when he addressed them. He led through fear and control. Not anymore, it seemed. My heart swelled.“Thank you all for coming,” he said, projecting his voice clearly and confidently across the room. “Luna Sienna and Alpha Rodriguez, of the Firepaw Pack.” He inclined his head at the dark-skinned woman my dad had been talking to before, and the bald-headed, well-muscled man sat beside her. They were both older than us by about fifteen years.The Alpha and Luna of the Storm Guardian Pack were older still, well into their fifties, their face
Alpha Ares 139 | KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE
Ares had given Dad the nicest of the Warrior Wolves’ cabins to stay in. When we arrived, Ares’s arm still latched securely around my waist as it had been every single step of the way, I saw two other familiar faces peering out at us through the window, their creased faces crinkling with smiles so wide I half feared their tissue paper skin might tear.The wind whipped between the cabins, making my eyes and cheeks sting. Dawn had long since settled across the horizon, pale pink fading into the usual white-grey cloud cover. Everything looked strange out here, unreal in a way I couldn’t quite process. I clutched at Ares, suddenly apprehensive as dad moved to let us in.My nerves dissolved as soon as set foot inside. We were both pulled into an embrace on all sides, many arms winding around us and holding us close.“You did it,” Nana Baspy whispered.I scoffed and, after another long moment, I pulled away. “I don’t think I can take any of the credit, Nana. I wasn’t even conscious for half
Alpha Ares 138 | SURRENDER AND SACRIFICE
The world shattered. For a time, it was nothing more than a series of fragmented images and distant, distorted sounds. I heard screaming, felt the tell-tale burning in my throat, but I couldn’t connect the noise to me. I was weightless, without a body, and then there was nothing but silent darkness.Words I couldn’t understand split apart the quiet. “It’s the other packs,” someone said excitedly. I recognised the voice, familiar enough but not someone I was close to. A hazy, half-formed image of a missing hand and foot beneath determined eyes and wispy blonde hair floated just out of reach, and I gave up trying to identify the mystery voice as they spoke. “Firepaw and Storm Guardian. They made it just in time. We did it! We survived.”No, we didn’t, I thought bitterly. Not all of us.“It’s not over yet.” That growl, gravel and honey – that was Ares. Something in me settled. But why had he shifted into his human body? That thought, along with all my others, drifted away, becoming nothi
Alpha Ares 137 | BATTLE OF THE MOUNTAIN
We were all so focused on Aliana that none of us heard the quiet tap-tap-tap of claws pacing the stone hallways of the Pack House behind us.And then Scillian smiled. Behind him, the Sable Stalker Alpha and Luna smirked, too, a cruel hook of their lips that made my blood boil; off to the side slightly, Bloodpelt Prowler’s Alpha grinned toothily. They were all so smug, so sure of themselves. So sure that they’d won.“What is this?” Dad asked flatly.“Oh, this?” Scillian brightened impossibly further as he gestured to Aliana. “A game.”“You wouldn’t hurt your own daughter.” Dad sounded less convinced about that than he had a minute ago. “Let her go, and let the battle recommence.”“My daughter is a traitor. And, worse than that: she was running from a fight.” Scillian scoffed. I watched his face closely as he walked, every stride slow and purposeful, towards Aliana. He caressed her cheek, but I looked beyond that. I searched out his eyes through the snowfall, and I found only adoration
Alpha Ares 136 | THE END OF US
I knew, deep down, that this was my last hurrah. I knew, deep down, that if it were not, I would’ve let the pain and the shock hold me back from fighting one last time. My body was weak, but I would not succumb to its needs. This was no ordinary battle, and I had never been one to give up.I felt the pain and let it make me stronger. Adrenaline surged through my veins. I would fight by my mate’s side, and I would try to make it mean something. That was all I could do, now.We neared the Pack House. The tension surrounding it was thick with foreboding; the stillness of the battlefield was somehow worse than when the air had been metallic with spilled blood and the snow melting from the heat of the felled bodies upon it. Now, fresh snow dusted the blood soaked fur of the dead, masking the worst of the atrocities that had been marked upon the land in stark pools of red.Everything was calm. Everything was quiet. Some dark premonition made the back of my neck crawl with the sense that, at
Alpha Ares 135 | BE AMONGST THE STARS
I was numb, inside and out, as I watched. My mind struggled to break free of the overwhelming melancholy, the agony so strong that the only way I could deal with it was to feel nothing at all.The cold helped. A bitter wind whipped between the boulders, sending snowflakes into a flurry. They turned my vision blurry: everything was black and white and grey again, as it had been in the time before Ares. Everything, that was, except for the blood.And there was so much blood.It was start against the pale backdrop of the mist and snow. A physical mark of violence, marring the purity of the white beneath. And, atop its own puddle of red, sat my ear. I shuddered every time my gaze drifted over it; it was the sort of thing I didn’t want to look at but also couldn’t look away from. It was grotesque, torn at a ragged angle, the flesh pink within – My lip curled. It looked so alien to me now, that missing piece of me. I couldn’t imagine how I looked, bloodied and battered, one ear gone. A sn
Alpha Ares 134 | HAUNTED
Claws ripped into me on both sides. I flung Elena off easily enough; she was so small that, even exhausted as I was from hours of adrenaline-fuelled fighting, it didn’t take much effort on my part to dislodge her. Distantly, I heard her pull herself to her paws again. But in this fight, both physically and in the heart of it, she didn’t matter. This was between Etta and I.I winced as Etta’s claws ripped free of my fur and flesh. Blood spat from the wound, hitting the snow and melting the ice surrounding it. I wrenched myself backwards, darting behind the nearest boulder and peering out around it. ‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked – no, I begged.‘I promised myself.’ Her mental voice was nothing like the one I remembered. Etta was often sarcastic and teasing, but there had been a warmth beneath even her cruellest of jokes that had dissipated after Damon’s death. ‘After you left, and after the attacks began. I had to do something for him.’‘Damon and I were friends.’ I edged backwards
Alpha Ares 133 | ON THE WINGS OF FATE
I’d made my choice when Ares mindlinked me. He sounded weak and weary, but very much alive. My heart leapt at the familiar sound of his voice, of gravel and honey, loosening the knot that had been pulling my chest taut ever since the battle had begun.‘I had to run, beautiful. There were too many of them, but I managed to get away.’That was all I needed to hear. I turned and shifted into my wolf form, preparing to race across the empty stretch of battlefield that had been left behind the attacking armies as they approached.‘Are you okay?’ I asked. There was one other thing I needed to hear, it turned out.‘I’m fine.’ I was pretty sure he was lying, but if he was well enough to lie then I didn’t have to worry about my mate too much. ‘Are you? What happened with Nazte?’‘Nothing. It was weird.’ I fell forwards, landing on paws and snapping my jaws. ‘He wanted to know how Cendres was. We just… Talked.’The cabin’s front door banged open behind me. I twisted around, catching sight of Na
