Night Ridge does not mark unions with celebration.
It prepares for slaughter.
That truth settles in the instant I step into the inner ring carved from obsidian-black stone. There are no garlands, no ceremonial songs, no forced smiles to disguise what this night truly is. Wolves stand shoulder to shoulder along the perimeter, silent and alert, eyes faintly glowing, blades already bared. The air is thick with warding magic—so heavy it vibrates through my bones, humming like a warning etched into my marrow.
Calder walks at my side.
Not leading.
Not following.
Beside me.
“You can still turn back,” he murmurs.
I almost laugh at the absurdity.
“If I turn back,” I reply quietly, “Corvin finds me before the sun rises.”
“Yes.”
“And if I don’t?”
Calder stops at the threshold of the circle. The torches surge higher in response to him, flames bending as if acknowledging his authority.
“Then Corvin Vortain loses every claim he ever had on you,” he says. “Permanently.”
My stomach tightens—but not with fear.
With something far more dangerous.
Hope.
I step forward.
The instant my foot crosses into the circle, the blood runes flare to life. Silver veins thread through dark crimson lines, pulsing like something newly awakened. Heat coils low in my abdomen, fierce and instinctive, and my wolf stirs violently beneath my skin.
Calder notices immediately.
His gaze drops to my stomach. “The altar reacts to you.”
“It always has,” I rasp.
Three Elders of Night Ridge advance—scarred, unyielding, stripped of any romantic illusions about what is about to take place.
“This is not a mating bond,” the eldest says flatly. “It is a blood-binding.”
“I know.”
“Once sealed,” another adds, “there is no severing it without death.”
“I know.”
Calder turns to face me fully. His expression is sharp, guarded, impossible to read.
“This will hurt,” he says. “There is no gentleness in this rite.”
“I’m not here for gentleness,” I answer.
Something flickers in his eyes—brief, raw, unmistakable.
“Then we begin,” he says.
The blade burns cold when it cuts my palm.
Calder goes first—no pause, no reverence, no hesitation. His blood strikes the stone, thick and dark. When mine follows, the altar reacts violently.
Light erupts upward.
Pain tears through me—brutal, searing, nothing like the slow, suffocating warmth of the bond I once shared with Corvin. This is iron locking shut. Fire carving itself into my soul.
I scream before I can stop it.
Above us, the Moon shudders as if struck by an unseen force. Clouds rip apart, exposing a flood of silver light—only for it to twist midair, bleeding into a deep, unnatural crimson.
Every wolf freezes.
Breath halts. Movement ceases.
“That… shouldn’t happen,” one of the Elders whispers.
My legs buckle. I don’t remember falling—only Calder’s arms catching me, his grip unbreakable as he hauls me against him, anchoring me before the stone can claim me.
Pain detonates low in my abdomen—sharp, pulsing, overwhelming. This is not the draining emptiness I’ve known before. Not the hollow ache left behind by stolen life.
This is different.
This is alive.
Something surges inside me—not a flutter, not a hesitant kick, but a powerful force that sends heat racing through my veins.
The altar splits with a thunderous crack.
Stone fractures outward in violent webs. Wards shatter like glass. Wolves stagger back as dominance slams across the stronghold.
But it isn’t Calder’s.
And it isn’t mine.
It belongs to the child.
Calder curses under his breath. “That wasn’t part of the rite.”
“I didn’t—” My words break apart as another wave of power rips through me.
Across Night Ridge, wolves drop to their knees, gasping as something ancient and suffocating presses down on them.
Calder stares at my stomach.
“What did Vortain do to you?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I swear—I don’t—”
A howl tears through the night.
Corvin.
Every muscle in my body locks.
“BORDER BREACH!” someone shouts.
The forest explodes into chaos—howls answering howls, steel ringing free, warriors flooding toward the perimeter.
Calder sets me on my feet, already drawing his blade. “He felt the bond shatter.”
Another howl—closer now.
“He’s here,” I whisper.
“Yes,” Calder replies grimly. “And he didn’t come alone.”
The ground trembles as wolves crash through the outer wards. Night Ridge surges forward to meet them, bodies colliding in a storm of claws and fangs.
Calder grips my shoulders. “Listen carefully. Do not let Vortain touch you.”
“I won’t.”
He turns—
And my body convulses.
Agony explodes along my spine as silver-red light erupts from my abdomen, shooting skyward like a beacon.
The Moon answers instantly.
Thunder tears across the heavens, so violent it feels as if the sky itself has split apart. Stone shudders beneath us. Wolves on both sides freeze mid-strike, mid-breath—as though something far older than any Alpha has seized the battlefield by the throat.
Time stalls.
Then a voice echoes across the clearing.
It does not come from my mouth.
It does not descend from the Moon.
It rises from deep inside me—resonant, inescapable, vibrating through bone and blood as if my body has become its vessel.
The voice is ancient. Cold. Absolute.
“HE IS NOT THE FATHER.”
Silence crashes down.
From the treeline, Corvin steps into view.
His armor is streaked with blood. Rage burns wild in his eyes.
Then he stops.
His dominance falters.
“What did you say?” he snarls.
My body arches again as power surges uncontrollably. Blood slips between my fingers, hot and terrifying.
The voice speaks once more—stronger, sharper, claiming.
“THE ALPHA WHO TOUCHED HER WILL DIE FIRST.”
Color drains from Corvin’s face in an instant.
For the first time since I met him, certainty fractures in his eyes—and what replaces it is unmistakable fear.
Calder stares at me as though he’s staring at a weapon he never knew existed—something dangerous, unfamiliar, and newly awakened in his grasp.
Then the pain becomes unbearable.
I scream as the ground splits apart beneath us, the altar collapsing entirely.
The Moon above turns black.
Corvin lunges toward me, panic shattering his rage. “You’re carrying my—”
Calder moves at the same time. “Mireya—!”
Everything breaks at once—the stone, the sky, the world itself—and I feel myself falling, weightless and powerless, as darkness closes in.
And as I fall, one truth burns through the pain with terrible clarity:
Whatever is growing inside me was never meant to belong to any Alpha at all.
