Chapter 17
The days that followed our union felt like a dream I hadn’t dared to have.
We weren’t hiding anymore. We weren’t healing anymore. We were living.
The village began to feel more permanent—walls stood taller, cabins were sealed against the winds, and gardens flourished under the care of hands that once only knew how to fight. The sounds of hammers and laughter filled the days. The nights were softer, filled with song and stories and, finally, rest.
But peace has a way of stirring old ghosts.
One evening, while I was checking supplies near the edge of the village, a scent drifted through the trees.
Familiar.
Unwanted.
I froze.
He appeared moments later, his senses sharper than mine. One glance at my face and he knew.
“You smell it too,” I whispered.
He nodded grimly. “Another scout. Whoever’s left… they’re watching.”
We moved quickly, silently. A small patrol of trusted wolves followed at a distance, shifting under the trees, eyes sharp.
We found him crouched at the edge of the ridge, watching the village through a spyglass.
He didn’t hear us until it was too late.
By the time he turned, two wolves had him pinned to the ground. He struggled, then froze the moment he saw me.
“Don’t kill him,” I said. “We need to know who sent him.”
The scout was young. Barely more than a boy, but already marked with the scent of the South—one of Radek’s outer rings.
He spat at my feet. “You think killing Radek ended it? There are others. He was just a head. The body’s still alive.”
I leaned down, my eyes meeting his.
“Then let them come. Let them see what happens when you corner the broken and leave them to rot. We don’t die quietly anymore.”
He smirked, bloody and bitter. “You think you’re free? You’re just waiting for someone stronger to take the throne.”
“I don’t want a throne,” I said. “I want peace. But I’ll fight for it if I have to.”
He didn’t speak again.
We locked him in one of the old cabins and doubled the patrols.
That night, I sat on the cabin steps, watching the firelight dance through the village. He sat beside me, silent for a while.
“We’re not done fighting,” I said softly.
“No,” he agreed. “But we’re not the same wolves we were.”
I turned to him. “What if more come? What if they bring numbers we can’t match?”
He looked out over the village—the wolves laughing, talking, living.
“Then we remind them,” he said, “what it means to come after a pack that’s already lost everything. We don’t break. We rise.”
I took his hand in mine, grounding myself in his warmth.
We’d fought so hard to make this place. To become something more than the pain we carried.
And now, as enemies stirred in the shadows once more, I realized something—
They didn’t fear us because we were strong.
They feared us because we had nothing left to lose.
And everything left to protect.