C7 The breach

The packhouse rang with alarm bells. Wolves rushed through the halls, half-shifted, snarling orders and confusion. The air was thick with fear and smoke from overturned torches.

Vashti stormed into the chaos, her voice cutting through the noise like a blade. “Seal the outer gates! Double the sentries on the wall! No one leaves until I have answers!”

Her wolves scrambled to obey, steadying under the command of their Luna. Yet Lucas could see the cracks: fear in their eyes, whispers curling like smoke in the corners.

This wasn’t just a breach. This was designed to humiliate her. To make her look weak.

---

Lucas pushed through the crowd, his gaze sweeping. The scent of Gravelmoon was everywhere, faint but undeniable. His own pack had orchestrated this. His Alpha was sending a message, one Vashti couldn’t ignore.

“Kade!”

He turned at the sound of his name—fake name — Vashti stood at the center of the war chamber, blood on her cheek, her eyes blazing.

“Come with me,” she ordered.

He followed her into the dungeon corridor. The heavy doors were splintered open, iron bars twisted like clay. Several cells gaped empty.

And carved into the stone wall, deep and jagged, were the words:

“Seventy-nine days.”

Vashti’s hands clenched into fists. Her wolf surged beneath her skin, her power rippling in the stale air. “They’re taunting us.”

Lucas’s stomach dropped. The Alpha wasn’t just threatening him in secret anymore. He was weaving Zoe into every move, leaving breadcrumbs only Lucas could understand.

Vashti turned sharply to him. “You saw the field. You fought them. You know how they move. Who trained these wolves?”

Her eyes bored into his, demanding an answer.

Lucas’s chest tightened. The truth clawed at him, begging to spill free. My Alpha. My pack. The very wolves who hold my daughter.

But if he spoke it, Zoe would die.

“I don’t know,” he said, the lie scraping raw across his throat.

Vashti’s stare lingered, searching, testing. The silence stretched, thick with tension. Finally, she said, “Then I’ll find out myself.”

---

That night, as the Paxton warriors secured the walls and hunted for the escaped prisoners, Lucas slipped into the forest for air. His wolf paced inside him, restless, furious.

From the shadows, the Gravelmoon Beta emerged. “Well done,” he sneered. “You’ve won her trust enough to stand at her side. But she’s clever, that one. She’ll start digging.”

Lucas’s fists clenched. “You promised Zoe would be safe.”

The Beta smirked. “Safe, yes. Free? Never. Remember your leash, omega. If she doubts you for even a breath, your daughter pays the price.”

He shoved another parchment into Lucas’s hand before vanishing back into the trees.

Lucas unfolded it with trembling fingers.

This time, it wasn’t a threat.

It was a drawing.

Zoe’s childish scrawl. A flower, crooked but bright, with the words beneath: For Papa.

Lucas’s knees buckled. He pressed the paper to his chest, choking on a sob. His Alpha wasn’t just using Zoe as a hostage. He was twisting her innocence into chains around Lucas’s soul.

Behind him, twigs snapped. Lucas spun — and froze.

Vashti stood at the edge of the trees, her dagger in hand, eyes locked on him.

And she had seen the parchment in his grasp.

******************

The night air was heavy, every rustle of leaves echoing like a drumbeat. Lucas stood frozen, Zoe’s crooked drawing crushed in his fist, while Vashti’s eyes burned like molten silver from the shadows.

She stepped forward slowly, her dagger gleaming in the moonlight. “What are you hiding from me?”

Lucas’s heart slammed against his ribs. He shoved the parchment behind his back, but it was too late. She had seen it.

Vashti’s voice was sharp, but beneath it was something raw — hurt. “You sneak into my armory. You vanish into the woods in the middle of the night. And now you stand here clutching secrets like they’ll save you.”

Her gaze narrowed, her wolf flickering in her stare. “Tell me, Kade— who are you really?”

His throat worked, but no words came. The mate-bond pulsed violently, demanding honesty, demanding surrender. His wolf howled to confess, to tell her about Zoe, about Gravelmoon, about the Alpha’s threats.

But then he saw Zoe’s tiny hands tied in rope, her voice trembling: Papa, please don’t let them take me.

He swallowed the truth like poison. “I’m no one.”

Vashti’s jaw clenched. She advanced, closing the space between them until her dagger’s tip pressed lightly against his chest. “No one doesn’t bleed for me in battle. No one doesn’t look at me like…” She faltered, her breath quickening, anger colliding with something softer, more dangerous. “…like you do.”

Lucas’s chest rose and fell, ragged. The heat of her closeness, the bond thrumming between them, the scent of her skin — it tore at his control. He wanted to grab her, to crash his lips against hers, to tell her mine.

Instead, his voice broke out hoarse. “Don’t ask me for truths I can’t give.”

Her eyes shimmered, silver light reflecting the ache she tried to hide. “Then what am I supposed to believe? That you’re here by chance? That the Moon sent me a stranger who bleeds and lies in the same breath?”

Her wolf surged, pulling at the tether between them, and Lucas felt it — the mate-bond snapping taut, vibrating through his bones. For one breathless heartbeat, he knew she felt it too.

Her dagger lowered an inch. Her lips parted, as if to speak the unspoken truth.

But then — a howl split the night, sharp and urgent. A Paxton scout burst through the trees, gasping.

“My queen!” he cried. “The prisoners… they weren’t freed. They were taken. And we found one of them dead, carved with another message—” His voice cracked. “Seventy-eight days.”

Vashti’s head snapped toward the scout, fury blazing. She sheathed her dagger, her walls slamming back into place.

When she looked at Lucas again, her face was carved of steel. “This conversation isn’t finished.”

She turned and strode away, her cloak vanishing into the dark.

Lucas’s knees nearly gave out. He stared at Zoe’s drawing in his hand, the little flower smudged by his blood.

He whispered to the night, broken, “How am I supposed to save you both?”

Unseen in the shadows, the Gravelmoon Beta watched with a grin. “The bond’s working faster than we thought,” he murmured. “This will be fun to break.”