I left at first light.
The forest was gray and wet, the kind of morning that sits heavy on your shoulders and doesn't lift. I had my leather journal tucked inside my jacket, Eleanor's herb bundle pressed against my collarbone, and the clothes I'd been wearing when they locked me in that room. That was it. Everything else—three years of careful work, of building a home inside someone else's walls—stayed behind.
The fence at the border was chain-link, rusted at the posts. On the other side, Barnaby threw himself against the kennel gate. Again. Again. The sound was raw and animal and wrong, the kind of sound that pulls at something deep in your chest even when you know you can't fix it.
I stopped at the fence post. Just for three seconds. I pressed my palm flat against the cold metal and felt the vibration of his howling travel up through my wrist.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
Then I crossed.
The moment my feet touched Hollowcreek soil, the pack bond I'd lived inside for three years—the one that had gone silent and cold when Mateo severed the mark—finally, fully, disappeared. Not like a door closing. Like a room that had never existed at all. I felt lighter. Emptier. I didn't know which was worse.
I kept walking.
---
Amanda found me before I'd made it half a mile into Hollowcreek territory.
She came at a run through the trees, boots loud on the wet leaves, and when she reached me she didn't slow down—she just grabbed my shoulders and looked at my face like she was checking for broken bones.
"You look like hell," she said.
"I feel worse."
"Good. You should." She let go and stepped back, breathing hard. Her jaw was tight. "That bastard. That absolute—" She bit off whatever word came next and shook her head. "No. We're not doing this here. Come on."
She turned and started walking, fast and sure, and I followed. I didn't ask where we were going. I didn't have the energy to ask.
We walked for twenty minutes in silence. Amanda's cottage sat at the edge of Hollowcreek's main settlement—small, wood-framed, with a porch that sagged on one side and a chimney that leaked smoke into the morning fog. She pushed the door open and held it.
"Inside," she said. "Now."
I went in.
The cottage was warm. There was a fire already going in the grate, and the smell of coffee so strong it made my eyes water. Amanda shut the door behind us and locked it—two bolts, top and bottom—then crossed to the kitchen and poured a mug without asking if I wanted one.
"Sit," she said, shoving the mug into my hands. "Drink. Then tell me everything, and I mean everything, because I'm about five seconds away from marching back to Shadowridge and starting a war."
I sat. I drank. The coffee was black and bitter and scalding, and it was the first thing that had tasted real in two days.
"Romina burned herself," I said. "With silver. Then screamed that I did it."
Amanda's face went very still. "And Mateo believed her."
"He didn't even look at the wound. He just—" I stopped. I pressed my fingers to the scar on my neck. The dead place. "He'd already decided."
Amanda set her own mug down hard enough that coffee slopped over the rim. She didn't seem to notice. She was staring at the wall, jaw working, hands curled into fists on the table.
"I'm going to kill him," she said quietly. "I'm actually going to kill him."
"Amanda—"
"No." She looked at me. Her eyes were blazing. "You don't get to defend him. Not after this. Not after—" She stopped. Took a breath. Uncurled her fists. "Okay. Okay. We're not killing him yet. First, we're getting you safe. Then we're getting you answers. Then—maybe—we kill him."
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Amanda stood and crossed to a cabinet in the corner. She pulled out a worn leather satchel and dropped it on the table between us.
"Hollowcreek keeps herb archives," she said. "Medical records, historical logs, everything our healers have documented for the last century. You want to know how Romina faked her death? Start there."
I stared at the satchel. Then at her.
"Your Alpha—"
"Will grant you sanctuary." Amanda's voice was flat and certain. "I'm presenting your case tomorrow morning. Unlawful mark severance, no tribunal, public humiliation, and a banishment based on a frame-up so obvious a pup could see through it. He'll say yes."
"And if Mateo retaliates?"
Amanda smiled. It was not a kind smile. "Let him try."
She sat back down, pulled a knife from her boot, and started sharpening it against a whetstone she kept on the windowsill. The sound was rhythmic and cold. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
I opened the satchel.
---
That night, I sat at Amanda's kitchen table with my journal open and three centuries of Hollowcreek herb documentation spread in front of me. Amanda sat by the door, still sharpening that knife, her presence a solid wall between me and the rest of the world.
I found wolfsbane in the second volume.
The entry was clinical, written in the tight script of a healer who'd seen too much to waste words. *Wolfsbane (Aconitum lycoctonum): ingested in controlled doses over 72-96 hours, suppresses scent signature at the hormonal level. Used historically to evade bond-tracking during territorial wars. Mimics biological death to any wolf attempting scent-trace. Requires precise dosing—overdose is fatal. Antidote: time and distance.*
I read it three times.
Then I opened my journal and started writing.
Romina's bond with Mateo formed on a Tuesday. The river crossing—the supposed drowning—happened on Friday. Three days. Exactly long enough for a full suppression cycle.
No body recovered. No scent trail. Just timing and chemistry.
I wrote it all down. Every detail. Every connection. I drew a timeline. I underlined the conclusion in heavy ink: *She didn't drown. She disappeared.*
When I finally looked up, the fire had burned low and Amanda was watching me.
"You found something," she said.
I nodded.
She stood, crossed to the table, and looked down at the open journal. She read in silence. Then she looked at me, and her smile was sharp and cold and satisfied.
"Good," she said. "Now we prove it."
