Ronan pov
The scent of blood clung to the air.
No matter how many warriors scrubbed the earth or how many torches burned, it lingered—thick, metallic, and wrong.
Even after the bodies were taken away, after the flames turned flesh to ash, the pack still felt tainted.
I stood near the center of the war room, my arms crossed, my body rigid with tension. My wolf paced inside me, growling low and deep. He was angry.
No—he was terrified.
I clenched my fists. I hadn't felt fear in years—not like this. I had trained for battle since I was a kid, sparred with warriors twice my size, faced down rogues without blinking. But tonight…
That thing.
It wasn't a wolf.
Not entirely.
And it had been watching her.
I exhaled sharply, shoving the thought away just as the heavy doors to the war room swung open.
Alpha Killian entered first, his face stone-cold, his usual calm sharpened to something lethal. His presence dominated the room, every movement precise, controlled. But his eyes—they burned with the same unease curling inside my gut.
Beta Vaughan (Ana father) followed at his right, his gaze dark and calculating. The elders trailed in next, their faces unreadable, each weighed down by the decades of leadership they carried. Then, finally, my own Beta (Jaxon ), Kai, and Zane took their places at my side.
The war room was silent, save for the faint crackling of torches along the stone walls. A massive oak table stood at the center, covered in maps of our borders, freshly marked with red ink where patrols had been stationed.
But none of us had an answer.
Alpha Killian's sharp gaze swept over the room before he finally broke the silence.
"We are under attack."
The words settled over us like a weight. No one flinched. No one protested. But the tension in the room thickened like a storm waiting to break.
"Not by rogues," he continued, his voice measured but edged with something grim. "Not by another pack. What we fought tonight was something else."
His fingers curled into the table's surface, and I caught the way his knuckles whitened.
My father was unsettled.
And that was something I had never seen before.
Beta Vaughan exhaled sharply. "It vanished into thin air, Killian. No creature does that. Not a rogue, not even a turned wolf."
Turned wolves—shifters who had lost themselves to madness, their humanity stripped away. They were nothing but rabid beasts. But even they bled. Even they died.
This thing didn't.
Kai shifted uncomfortably beside me. "And the way it moved…" He hesitated, shaking his head. "It wasn't natural."
No one disagreed.
Alpha Killian inhaled slowly, pressing his hands flat against the table. "We reinforce our borders. Every entrance. Every exit. Patrols will double immediately." His gaze flicked to the warriors gathered around us. "No one walks alone. Not even in daylight."
Vaughan nodded. "And what of the girl?"
A growl rumbled deep in my chest before I could stop it.
Raine.
I forced my shoulders to relax, but it took everything in me.
"That thing was watching her," I said finally, my voice steady but my hands clenched into fists. "It wasn't attacking at random. It was waiting. And when it looked at her, it…smiled."
The memory sent a fresh wave of unease through me.
It had been amused.
Killian's gaze flickered. "You're certain?"
"Yes."
Silence stretched between us.
Then my father made his decision.
"Raine Hayes is to be watched at all times." His voice left no room for argument. "She will not be left unguarded."
My wolf rumbled with satisfaction. I had already decided that myself. Even if he hadn't ordered it, I would have done it anyway.
But I didn't miss the way Vaughan hesitated before nodding. The way one of the elders exchanged glances with another.
The meeting stretched on—discussions of border patrol rotations, war tactics, and worst-case scenarios. The warriors spoke in clipped tones, strategizing every possible angle. But my mind wasn't in the room anymore.
It was back in that clearing.
Back to the way my wolf had nearly lost control.
When I had seen that thing move toward her, every single instinct inside me had snapped. My wolf had clawed at the surface, his rage suffocating, his need to protect nearly overwhelming me.
I had been Seconds away from tearing that thing apart with my own teeth.
Not just because it was a threat to the pack.
But because it had dared to get near her.
Raine.
She was in my head, under my skin. My wolf didn't just want to protect her—he wanted to claim her.
And that terrified me more than whatever the hell we had fought tonight.
Because she hated me.
Because she would never accept me.
And my wolf didn't care.
His instincts screamed that she was ours, that she needed us. That if I didn't do something, something worse would come for her.
And next time, we might not be fast enough.
I tightened my jaw as the meeting began to wind down, my father's voice fading into the background.
I needed to see her.
I needed to know she was still safe.
And I needed to figure out what the hell was coming for her—before it was too late.