The sign for "The Mangy Cur" was a slab of weather-beaten wood, the faded painting of a snarling wolf barely visible in the twilight. It creaked on rusted hinges, a lonely, mournful sound that was quickly swallowed by the biting wind. Connall pulled his cloak tighter, the coarse fabric scratching his chin, and pushed open the heavy, iron-banded door.
A wall of noise and scent hit him like a physical blow. The air was a thick, suffocating stew of wet fur, stale ale, cheap tobacco, and the acrid smoke from a poorly drawing hearth. It was the smell of desperation. The low-ceilinged room was packed with shifters, their powerful forms hunched over rough-hewn tables, casting long, menacing shadows in the flickering lamplight. Low growls rumbled through the space like distant thunder, and every pair of eyes that lifted to assess them was filled with the cold, predatory light of survival. These were not pack wolves, bound by loyalty or law. They were outcasts, exiles, and cutthroats—scarred, hungry, and utterly without allegiance.
*A den of sharks,* Connall thought, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword beneath his cloak. *And we just started bleeding.*
Trust was a currency that bought you a shallow grave out here. He kept his head low, his gaze sweeping the room as he guided Althea through the narrow gaps between tables. He could feel her tension, a rigid line in her back as she moved beside him. He caught the faint, clean scent of pine and stone that clung to her, a stark contrast to the room's foul air. She was a Luna, born to command respect with a glance. This world of suspicious glares and snarled lips was as alien to her as the bottom of the sea, and her discomfort was a beacon.
Behind a bar stained dark with decades of spilled secrets and spilled blood stood the proprietor. He was a mountain of a wolf, his face a roadmap of old scars, one of which had blinded his left eye, leaving it a milky orb. His arms, thick as tree trunks, were crossed over his massive chest. He didn't speak as they passed, merely watched them with his one good eye, flat and unnervingly intelligent. His name was Cuthbert, and his silent, brooding presence was the only law that kept the daggers in their sheaths. He gave a slow, deliberate nod—not a welcome, but an acknowledgment. They were permitted to exist, for now.
***
They found a booth in the darkest corner of the tavern, the high back providing a sliver of privacy. It was deep in shadow, a perfect vantage point to observe the room without drawing further attention. Althea slid onto the bench, pulling her hood so far forward that her face was almost completely obscured. Connall sat opposite, his back to the wall, his gaze never ceasing its methodical sweep of the room.
He closed his eyes for a moment, letting his heightened Alpha senses take over. He filtered out the clatter of tankards, the scrape of chairs, the general hum of discontent. He pushed past it all, honing in on a single, hushed conversation from a nearby table where two grizzled rogues were hunched over their ale.
"...another patrol on the northern ridge," one of them grumbled, his voice a low rasp. He scratched at a jagged scar on his cheek. "Guntram's got his Bloodfangs choking every path. It was never this hard to make a living under the old Alpha."
"The old Alpha had honor," the second rogue muttered into his cup, his knuckles white. "This one's just a rabid dog who got lucky. Thinks a bloody crest and a stolen title make him a king. He's a tyrant, plain and simple."
Connall's posture stiffened. He'd expected complaints—rogues always complained—but the sheer venom aimed at Guntram was startling. It was personal.
The first rogue swirled the dregs of his ale. "It all went to shit when they lost their Luna. She knew how to keep the Alpha grounded. The pack adored her."
Connall's blood ran cold. He leaned forward almost imperceptibly, straining to catch every word over the thumping of his own heart.
"Althea Verran," the second rogue said, the name spoken with a strange, grudging reverence. "A good wolf. Kind. Never looked down on you, not even if you were packless." He let out a harsh, cynical laugh. "This story about her committing treason? That she killed her own mate for power?" He spat on the floorboards. "Never smelled right. A Luna like that doesn't just turn. Someone powerful wanted her gone. Framed her, clean and simple."
The words struck Connall not as a blow, but as a fissure, cracking the very bedrock of his world. He felt frozen, the noisy tavern fading into a distant roar. For ten years, his entire existence had been built on a single, unshakeable truth: the Silvermoons were betrayed. And in his mind, Althea Verran, the lost Luna of the enemy pack, was just another traitor, cut from the same cloth as those who butchered his family. He'd held onto that hatred, nurtured it, used it as a shield against the pain of his loss and the agony of the bond.
Now, to hear these hardened rogues—men who had nothing to gain, no reason to lie—speak of her with admiration, to defend her innocence as an obvious fact… it sent a shockwave through a decade of righteous certainty. A cold dread washed over him. If she was framed, then the enemy he had been hunting was not the woman sitting across from him. The real enemy was still out there, hidden, and far more cunning than he had ever imagined.
He risked a glance across the table. Althea's head was bowed, her face hidden in the shadows of her hood. But she wasn't quick enough. He saw a single, silent tear trace a path down her cheek, glistening for a moment in the dim light before she quickly and fiercely wiped it away. It wasn't the desperate grief he'd seen in the sanctuary. This was the profound, aching pain of vindication, of hearing a truth you thought was buried forever finally given a voice by strangers in the dark, while the one man who should have seen it refused to.
***
His focus on the rogues had been too intense. One of them, the one who had defended Althea, suddenly stopped talking. He turned his head slowly, his hard eyes narrowing as they locked onto Connall's.
The rogue rose to his feet. He was broad and scarred, his hand resting casually on the hilt of a wicked-looking knife at his belt. He moved toward their booth with a slow, deliberate gait that was anything but casual, a predator closing in.
"Got a special interest in Bloodfang business, stranger?" he growled, his voice low and threatening. He stopped beside their table, looming over them, casting them in his shadow.
Althea tensed, her body coiling like a spring, ready to fight. Connall remained perfectly still, a cold calm settling over him. He met the rogue's hostile gaze, calculating, preparing the right words to defuse the situation without bloodshed.
The rogue leaned closer, his nostrils flaring as he took in the air around them, trying to parse the confusing scents of two powerful shifters hiding under cloaks. He was trying to catch Althea's scent, to confirm the suspicion his own words had planted. But his nose caught something else first. Something older. Sharper.
His hostile expression slackened. The hard lines of his face melted away, his jaw going slack. His eyes widened, the aggression draining out of them to be replaced by a look of stunning, absolute shock. He took an involuntary step back, his hand falling away from his knife as if it had been burned.
The entire tavern, a place tuned to the subtlest shifts in power and violence, sensed the change. The low growls died. The conversations stopped mid-word. The scrape of a chair, the clink of a mug—all ceased. A heavy, profound silence fell over the den of sharks. Every eye in the room turned toward their dark corner.
The rogue stared at Connall, not at his face, but through him, as if seeing a ghost. His voice, when it came, was a choked whisper that cut through the sudden quiet with terrifying clarity.
"That scent… Silvermoon."