The gamble had failed. The narrow, dusty box canyon was not a pass-through, not a defensible chokepoint. It was a tomb. Connall skidded to a halt, kicking up clouds of red dust that tasted like grit and despair. His chest heaved, lungs burning from a run fueled by pure, panicked instinct. Behind him, Althea stumbled to a stop, her breath catching in ragged, half-swallowed sobs. The sheer rock walls shot straight up on either side, their sun-baked surfaces offering no handholds, no hope, no escape. He had pushed them for hours, relying on the hard-won instincts that had kept him alive for a decade to find a path—any path—away from the ghost-scent that clung to their heels. He'd been wrong.
Then, the sounds of pursuit—the steady, relentless crunch of paws on stone that had been their death knell—vanished. The silence that fell was absolute, a suffocating blanket woven from dry heat and anticipation. It was more terrifying than the chase itself. Every instinct in Connall's body screamed. This wasn't a lost trail. This was a kill zone. This was an executioner's silence.
He turned slowly, his heart a cold stone in his gut, every muscle coiled tight. At the mouth of the canyon, four shadows detached themselves from the long, oppressive afternoon light. They were wolves, massive and battle-hardened, their bodies positioned with the chilling discipline of a unit that had performed this exact maneuver a hundred times. They blocked the only exit, their stillness a promise of violence. The leader was a beast of nightmare proportions, dark-furred and heavily scarred, its yellow eyes burning with a cold, terrifying intelligence.
*Sloppy.* The word was a lash of self-hatred in Connall's mind, sharp and venomous. He had let the distraction of being chained to her, this woman he was sworn to hate, dull his edge. The constant, agonizing thrum of their bond, the grating presence of another being in his solitary world, had made him careless. He had made a novice's mistake. A fatal one. Althea's gaze darted from the imposing hunters to Connall, and in her wide, silver eyes, he saw a despair that mirrored his own. She saw him not as an ally, but as the other half of a cage she was about to die in.
The lead wolf stepped forward, its paws making no sound on the rocky ground. Its movements radiated a casual, predatory confidence that turned Connall's blood to ice. With a ripple of muscle and a faint, sickening crackle of bone, the beast unfolded upward, shifting into a mountain of a man. A jagged scar pulled one side of his mouth into a permanent, mocking sneer, and his cruel, intelligent eyes swept over them, savoring their trapped expressions. The other three wolves remained in their shifted forms, flanking him like living weapons, their heads low and their powerful shoulders bunched. It was Skarde. Skarde One-Eye, the butcher of strongholds. The leader of the Dreadfangs.
His voice was a low rumble that seemed to make the very rocks vibrate. "Nowhere left to run." He let the words hang in the dead air, a final judgment. His gaze settled on Althea, a flicker of dismissive contempt in his eyes. "Lord Guntram sends his regards. He is tired of dealing with a *lost Luna*…"
Then, Skarde's eyes swiveled, pinning Connall with a look of triumphant, chilling discovery. He delivered the killing blow to their anonymity, a verbal blade meant to twist in the wound. "…and he wants his *Silvermoon ghost* put back in the ground for good."
The name, spoken aloud by this monster, was a physical shock. It slammed into Connall with the force of a battering ram, confirming his worst fear. This wasn't a hunt for a framed she-wolf. It was a targeted assassination, a direct command from the usurper himself to erase the last remnant of the true royal line. The ghost he had become for ten years had finally been seen.
Beside him, Althea recoiled as if she'd been struck. The words shattered any lingering, desperate hope of justice or mercy. Her own Alpha, the man she had been raised to revere, had not just banished her. He had sent his most feared executioners. The confirmation was a betrayal so profound it hollowed her out, stealing the very breath from her lungs.
The twin spikes of rage and despair—his at being found, hers at being betrayed—ignited the bond between them. It wasn't the familiar, aching thrum of proximity. This was a violent, searing energy that erupted in their chests, a shared agony so intense they both gasped and stumbled. It was the bond feeding on their anguish, a parasitic connection that gorged on their pain. Skarde watched them, his sneer twisting with a flicker of cruel, fascinated interest as he witnessed their supernatural torment. He was not just a killer; he was a connoisseur of suffering.
Skarde gave a sharp, almost imperceptible nod. It was the only signal needed. In a coordinated wave of snarling fury, his wolves attacked.
There was no time for a plan, no room for thought. Connall and Althea shifted in a blur of instinct and terror, their human forms exploding into wolf shapes. But they were not a pack. They were two armies of one, their movements a chaotic mess of conflicting purpose. Connall fought with the brutal, head-on offense of a lone Alpha, lunging forward to meet the threat, expecting no quarter and giving none. Althea, driven by the desperate panic of a fugitive, moved to protect her own space, her instincts screaming to create distance, to find an escape where there was none.
Their lack of unity was a fatal flaw. A scarred brute with matted fur lunged for Connall's throat. He twisted away, a purely reflexive move to present his armoured shoulder instead of his neck, but it forced Althea directly into the path of another attacker. She cried out, a high-pitched sound of pain as claws raked across her shoulder, tearing through fur and flesh. The blow sent her stumbling, her defense faltering, her blood scenting the dry air.
The assassins' teamwork was a thing of ruthless beauty. They harried and isolated, their attacks flowing one into the next, never giving their targets a moment to recover or regroup. They moved like a single, four-headed beast. Connall's raw power was immense, but it meant little against four trained killers working as one. He was being worn down, a fresh cut opening over his eye that dripped blood, his powerful movements growing heavier with each desperate clash.
He lunged, snapping his jaws shut on the leg of one wolf, feeling the satisfying crunch of bone. He tried to use the momentary pain of his foe to create space, to force them back. But while he was tangled with two of the assassins, a third, seeing the opening his aggression had created, slammed its full weight into Althea. She was thrown through the air like a discarded toy, crashing hard against the canyon wall with a sickening thud that echoed in the enclosed space. She crumpled to the ground, a wounded, dazed heap of grey fur, struggling to rise.
Connall saw it happen, a vision of failure at the edge of his sight. He felt the impact through the bond, a dull, phantom echo of her pain that fueled his rage. Skarde, his cruel human eyes seeing the final checkmate, shifted back. His massive wolf form rose, a black monster against the dying sun, saliva dripping from his jaws. He began a slow, predatory stalk toward Althea, his intent brutally clear. He was moving in for the killing blow.
Connall was trapped, fending off two snarling killers, their jaws snapping inches from his face. He was forced to watch as the leader of the Dreadfangs moved to execute the one wolf he loathed, the woman who represented the ruin of his world, yet was inexplicably, agonizingly bound to his own survival.