The dawn air was cold enough to burn my lungs.
I stood at the trailhead with the rest of the ranked wolves, my boots planted in the dirt, my wolf a dim flicker beneath my ribs. She was there. Barely. A candle in a room filling with water.
Cole stood at the front of the group, his posture easy and commanding. Gia was beside him, her hand resting lightly on his arm. The Luna pendant caught the early light. She looked radiant. Healthy. Everything a Luna should be.
I pressed my fingertips to the side of my neck. The empty space.
Marcus called the formation. High-ranked wolves at the front and flanks. Mid-ranked warriors scattered through the center. Omegas at the rear. Standard protocol for a formal pack run.
Except I wasn't placed with the Omegas.
I was positioned three wolves behind Cole and Gia. Close enough to amplify the Alpha's aura. Close enough to be seen. Far enough to be forgotten.
A battery. Again.
My wolf stirred weakly. I felt her try to push toward the surface, try to shift, and the effort made my chest ache. I forced the half-shift instead — claws extending, muscles thickening just enough to carry me through the run. It was all I could manage. Full transformation would drain what little I had left.
Cole raised his hand. The signal.
We ran.
The Blackridge trail was narrow and winding, carved into the cliff face generations ago by wolves who knew the terrain better than their own heartbeats. To the left, dense forest. To the right, a sheer drop into the river gorge below. The sound of water was constant — a low roar that never quite faded.
I kept pace. My legs burned. My breath came in ragged pulls. But I kept pace.
Around me, the pack moved like a single organism. Synchronized. Efficient. Beautiful in the way only a well-trained pack could be.
I focused on the ground in front of me. On the rhythm of my steps. On not falling.
We were a mile in when I noticed the formation shifting.
Subtle. Deliberate. The wolves ahead of me spreading wider, creating space. The wolves behind me closing in, tightening the corridor. Within thirty seconds, the pack's arrangement had funneled Cole, Gia, and me into the narrowest section of the trail — a stretch barely wide enough for two wolves side by side, the cliff edge less than three feet to our right.
I slowed fractionally. Scanned the treeline to our left.
Movement.
Not wind. Not deer.
Wolves.
My wolf went still.
Three seconds later, they emerged.
Six rogues. Maybe seven. They came out of the forest in coordinated formation — too clean, too precise to be wild drifters looking for an easy meal. These were trained. Hired.
Operatives.
The pack's front line faltered. Wolves collided, stumbled, tried to regroup. The rogues drove straight into the gap, splitting our formation like an axe through wood.
Chaos.
Snarls. Snapping jaws. The wet sound of claws meeting flesh.
I was shoved sideways. My shoulder hit the cliff face. Rock scraped skin. I twisted, claws out, and caught a rogue's forearm before he could close his jaws on my throat. He was huge. Easily twice my weight. His eyes were flat and focused.
Professional.
I drove my claws into his wrist and felt bone. He jerked back with a snarl. Another rogue was already moving toward me from the right.
I was being cornered. Pushed toward the edge.
I looked for Cole.
He was ten feet ahead, surrounded by three rogues. Gia was behind him, pressed against the cliff wall, her eyes wide and her mouth open.
"Cole!" Her voice cut through the noise. High. Terrified. "Cole, please!"
I saw him turn.
I saw the decision happen in his body before his mind caught up.
He moved toward Gia.
Not toward me. Toward her.
He wrapped himself around her like a shield, his back to the rogues, his arms caging her against the rock. Protecting her. Covering her. His Alpha mass absorbing every angle of attack.
The rogue in front of me lunged.
I twisted. Too slow. My wolf was too weak, my body too drained, and I was too close to the edge.
His shoulder connected with my chest.
Solid. Brutal. A freight train.
I went over.
The world tilted. Sky became ground. Ground became air.
I reached for anything. Rock. Root. A handhold that didn't exist.
My claws scraped stone. Found nothing.
The river gorge opened beneath me like a mouth.
I fell.
Wind screamed past my ears. My wolf tried to shift — a desperate, instinctive attempt to brace for impact — but there was no time, no strength, no—
I hit the water.
Cold swallowed me whole. The current grabbed my body and pulled me under, spinning me like debris. I couldn't tell which way was up. My lungs burned. My ribs screamed.
I broke the surface for half a second. Gasped. Went under again.
The river dragged me downstream. Rocks tore at my arms, my legs, my back. I tasted blood.
Above me, distantly, I heard the sounds of combat. Snarls. Howls. The pack fighting rogues on the cliff trail.
No one was coming for me.
No one had seen me fall.
Or if they had, they hadn't cared enough to follow.
The current pulled me deeper. My vision blurred. My wolf went silent.
I stopped fighting.
I let the river take me.
And as the cold closed over my head, the last thing I felt was my fingertips pressing against the side of my neck.
The empty space where a mark should have been.
The space that would stay empty forever.
