Chapter3

The heat lamps glared down on me for an entire day.

I lay pressed against the bottom of the iron cage, every breath pure agony. My eyelids drooped, heavy like lead, only to be forced open again by the searing, relentless light.

Behind me, the stray dogs had long since surrendered their strength. Nothing remained but their ragged, shallow panting, mingling rhythmically with the frantic thud of my own heartbeat.

The tiny red recording light of the camera blinked continuously.

"Hey fam, look at this stamina—it's been over a dozen hours." Madison's voice trembled with a sickening trace of excitement. "Should we set up a poll? Let's see if this little freak can last a full twenty-four!"

I didn't have the energy to spare her a single glance. Instead, I fixated my gaze on a loose drainpipe in the corner of the room, chanting internally over and over: Not yet. Hold on just a little longer.

Miles away on the edge of the territory, near the old ranger station, Cole had been scouring the area for three days.

Three days ago, his mother had grabbed his arm, her grip desperate. "Cole, Ellie hasn't shown her face in days. The food I left her is completely untouched. Please, just go check on her. I'm begging you."

He had tried to comfort her at first. "Maybe she just wandered off a bit further. She probably got bored and went for a stroll."

"No." His mother shook her head, the deep-seated panic bleeding into her eyes. "She never skips meals. Even when she's upset, she would never waste what I leave for her. You know her."

He had agreed, though he hadn't taken it too seriously—until today. Sweeping aside a mound of snow-dusted dead grass, he found the shattered remains of her wooden den.

Most of the planks were crushed. The venison was frozen solid, and medicinal herbs were scattered aimlessly across the frost. And there, by the edge of the wreckage, lay something else.

His fingers trembled. Brushing the snow away, he pried a small bell free from a crack in the frozen earth.

It was the bell bearing the crescent moon crest of the Blackwood Pack.

"Impossible," he muttered.

Clutching the bell so hard it bit into his palm, he pivoted and broke into a dead sprint back to the pack compound.

Inside the main hall, Mara was pacing relentlessly. The moment she saw Cole burst through the double doors, the color drained entirely from her face.

"Ellie... what happened to Ellie?"

Cole opened his mouth but ultimately found no words. Instead, he gently dropped the ruined bell into his mother's trembling palm.

Mara swayed heavily on her feet. Staring at the dark, dried crimson staining the metal, tears instantly spilled down her cheeks.

"No... this can't be... She's just a late bloomer... She's alive... She has to be alive..."

She spun around and threw herself at Ron, gripping the lapels of his shirt with white knuckles. "Ron, please! Send men to find her! I'm begging you, she's our daughter!"

Ron remained silent. The hand holding his liquor glass froze in mid-air.

"Alpha," an elder's voice cut in from the sidelines. "According to our laws, the exiled are no longer pack. Is it worth mobilizing the patrol into human territory for a... a failure?"

"Exactly," another elder chimed in. "Alerting the humans could bring down wrath upon the entire pack."

Mara whipped her head around, her eyes bloodshot. "She is my child! Not a failure!"

Ron closed his eyes. With a sharp crack, the thick glass in his grip warped and shattered completely.

"...Where did you find it?" he finally asked, his voice deathly quiet, stripped of any readable emotion.

"The border ranger station." Cole swallowed hard against his tight throat. "The den was intentionally destroyed. There were signs of a struggle and escape attempts. And there's a foreign scent lingering in the area. Not wolf—human."

The elder frowned deeply. "Humans? Even if she was taken by humans, what use would they have for an... undersized runt..."

"Shut up." Ron's voice violently spiked, crushing all dissent in the room.

He stood up and strode toward the entrance.

"She bears the crescent moon of Blackwood. Whether she can shift or not, she carries my blood. And I will not let my blood die at the hands of humans."

He paused and turned back, his gaze now blazing with absolute, sub-zero fury.

"Furthermore," he said, locking onto the bloodstained bell, enunciating every single word, "those humans dared to breach the fringes of our territory to abduct one of ours. Today they steal a pup. Tomorrow, they’ll march right into our core lands."

"...Avery," he commanded. "Take your men and track them immediately."

He hesitated for a fraction of a second, as if violently suppressing a tremor.

"Bring her back alive, or bring back her body," he snarled. "Whoever so much as touched a single hair on her head... I will make sure they beg for a death that will never come."

Before his words even hit the floor, Ron threw off his human skin. Yet, in the very fraction of a second his shift initiated, he staggered. The massive black wolf crashed heavily into the thick snow outside. Ignoring the shocked stares of his pack, he scrambled up and charged out into the darkness. A bone-chilling howl ripped through the night sky.

Back in the basement, my consciousness began to fray.

"Nineteen hours." Madison's voice drifted through the haze, threaded with toxic impatience. "When is this stupid thing finally going to drop?"

I fought to widen my eyes, but the world had already bleached into a blinding, featureless white.

Right before the darkness swallowed me whole, I thought I heard it—

From far, far away... the piercing howl of a wolf.