POV: Liora
The scream tore from my throat before I could stop it. Alpha Declan lay sprawled across the wooden floor of the meeting hall, his silver hair matted with blood. His eyes stared at nothing, wide and empty, while crimson pooled beneath him like a grotesque shadow. The smell hit me next, iron and death, so thick I could taste it.
"No." My legs buckled. I crashed to my knees beside him, my hands reaching for his throat where the wound gaped open. "No, please, Alpha, please."
His skin was cold. Too cold. I pressed my palms against the gash, trying to hold the blood in even though my brain screamed that it was useless. He was gone. Our Alpha was dead.
"Someone help!" I shouted toward the open door. "Please, someone help him!"
The drums still echoed from outside, the festival continuing in oblivious celebration. The Blood Moon cast everything in shades of red through the windows. Red moon, red blood, red staining my hands as I tried desperately to save a man already beyond saving.
Footsteps thundered toward the hall.
"I heard screaming, what.." Beta Matthias appeared in the doorway. His face was drained of color. "Goddess above."
More wolves crowded behind him, their festive expressions melting into horror. I recognized Marcus, Sera, old Thomas who'd taught me to hunt. Their eyes moved from Declan's body to me, kneeling in his blood.
"I found him like this," I gasped, my voice shaking. "I just walked in and he was already.."
"Step away from him." Matthias's voice was cold. Flat.
"What? Matthias, we need to.."
"I said step away from the Alpha!" His command cracked through the air like a whip. The Beta authority in his words forced my body to obey before my mind could protest. I stumbled backward, my blood-soaked hands held up in front of me.
Matthias moved closer, his dark eyes sweeping the scene. The pack pressed into the doorway, their shock turning into something else. Something dangerous.
"I saw her." Matthias spoke quietly, but every wolf heard him. "Running from the clearing about ten minutes ago. I thought she just needed air, but now..."
"That's not what happened!" Panic clawed up my throat. "I went for a walk, yes, but I came back and found him like this. Matthias, you know me. You know I would never.."
"Search her." Matthias didn't look at me.
Two wolves grabbed my arms. I tried to pull away, but Marcus's grip was iron on my left side while another warrior, Derek, held my right. His fingers dug into the exact spot Matthias had hit during training last week, and I wondered if that was coincidence.
Derek's hand shoved into my jacket pocket. My heart stopped when he pulled something out.
A knife.
Silver blade, wooden handle, the edge dripping with blood that was still wet.
"That's not mine!" The words exploded from me. "I've never seen that knife before, someone planted it, you have to believe me!"
But I could see it in their eyes. The doubt bleeds into certainty. The pack bond thrummed with their rising fury, each wolf's rage feeding the others until it became a living thing that pressed against my skull.
"Traitor," someone hissed from the crowd.
"She killed the Alpha," Sera's voice broke on a sob. My best friend since childhood looked at me like I was a stranger. A monster.
"How could you?" Old Thomas stepped forward, his weathered face twisted in disgust. "Declan raised you after your parents died. He treated you like his own daughter."
"I didn't do this!" My voice cracked. Tears blurred my vision. "Please, someone planted that knife. Matthias, tell them. You were talking to Declan right before the scream. You must have seen something."
Matthias finally met my eyes. His expression was carved from stone, unreadable and remote. "I was discussing border patrols with the Alpha. He dismissed me to enjoy the festival." His voice dropped. "You've been distant lately, Liora. Secretive. Meeting someone at the borders."
My blood ran cold. "I was hunting. You know I prefer to hunt alone."
"Or meeting with rogues." Matthias pulled something else from his pocket. A strip of cloth, torn and dirty. "We found this at the eastern border yesterday. It has your scent on it."
That was from two weeks ago when I'd tracked that wounded deer. I'd torn my shirt on a branch. But the way Matthias presented it, the timing, it looked like evidence of betrayal.
"Take her to the cages," Matthias ordered. "At dawn, we hold a tribunal."
Tribunal. The word was pretty, but we all knew what it meant. There was only one punishment for murdering an Alpha. They would tear me apart while the pack watched.
"No!" I thrashed against Marcus and Derek's hold. "I'm innocent! Matthias is lying, can't you see that? He's framing me!"
But the pack bond sang with their conviction. Their Alpha was dead. Someone had to pay. And I was kneeling in his blood with the murder weapon in my pocket.
They dragged me through the clearing. The festival decorations mocked me, colorful ribbons and hanging lanterns surrounding wolves who screamed for my death. Someone threw a rock that cracked against my temple. Warm blood trickled down my face to mix with Declan's blood still coating my hands.
"Murderer!"
"Kill her now!"
A child I'd babysat last month spat at my feet.
The cages waited at the eastern edge of our territory, iron bars that reeked of rust and fear. We kept them for rogues and criminals. I never imagined I'd be thrown into one.
Marcus and Derek hauled me forward, the pack following like a mob hungry for violence. My wolf clawed inside me, desperate to break free, to run, to survive.
That's when I noticed it.
The guard post was empty. The cage door hung open, swaying slightly in the breeze. And beyond the tree line, I could see the thinning of the forest where our territory ended. This was my only chance.
I let my body go limp, deadweight in their arms. Marcus grunted, adjusting his grip, and in that split second I shifted.
My wolf burst through my skin in an explosion of grey fur and instinct. Bones cracked and reformed. My clothes are shredded. Marcus's hands grabbed at air as I tore free and bolted into the forest. The pack's howl shook the trees.
I ran faster than I'd ever run in my life. Trees blurred into shadows. The Blood Moon watched through the canopy, turning everything the color of blood. Behind me, dozens of paws thundered against the earth. Snarls and howls filled the air, the pack bond screaming at me to stop, to submit, to accept death. But I wanted to live.
I veered left through a creek, splashing through cold water to mask my scent. Leaped over fallen logs. Squeezed through a gap in the rocks where the larger males couldn't follow.
They were still gaining.
A wolf snapped at my heels, teeth grazing my back leg. I pushed harder, my lungs burning, muscles screaming. The border was closed. So close. If I could just reach neutral territory, they couldn't follow without risking war with the neighboring packs.
Thirty yards.
Twenty.
Ten.
Fire exploded through my shoulder. I crashed into the undergrowth, my wolf form flickering as pain whited out my vision. When I looked down, an arrow jutted from my flesh, the shaft vibrating with the impact.
Hunters. I'd run straight into hunter territory.
Slow footsteps approached through the trees. Human footsteps. I tried to shift back, to speak, to beg, but my shoulder collapsed when I moved. Blood soaked into the dead leaves beneath me.
A shadow fell across my body.
"Well, well." The hunter's voice was male and cold. "What do we have here?"
Behind me, the pack's howls grew closer. In front of me, I heard the creak of a bow as another arrow was nocked.
I was going to die. Either by hunter's arrow or pack justice. Either way, I would die with Declan's murderer still free and everyone believing I was a traitor. Then the forest went quiet.
The kind of quiet that comes before a storm. Before death. From the darkness beyond the hunter came a sound that froze my blood. A growl, deep and primal, that resonated in my bones. Not a wolf's growl. Something else. Something older and far more dangerous.
The hunter spun, his bow tracking toward the sound.
A massive shape exploded from the shadows, moving too fast to see clearly. The hunter's scream cut off with a wet crunch. His body hit a tree with a sound like breaking branches.
The pack behind me went silent. Even their footsteps stopped. I couldn't move. Could barely breathe. Blood loss made my vision swim, the world tilting sideways.
The shape moved closer. In the red light filtering through the trees, I saw eyes. Gold, burning like embers in the dark.
A voice rumbled from the shadows, rough as gravel and sharp as broken glass.
"Don't move."