Chapter 4

At dawn, a black car waited outside the pack gate.

My adoptive parents were away on a Council assignment. They said goodbye over a video call.

Mom's eyes were red. "Are you sure you don't want us to come back?"

"Family can't come to intake anyway."

Dad cleared his throat. "Eat properly. If anyone gives you trouble, tell your professor. Don't keep it to yourself."

My nose stung.

At least somebody was sad to see me go.

The others had spent all night at Elodie's house.

The group chat hadn't stopped.

Felix sent a video from the yard. Elodie in wolf form, shaking, holding her shift while the four of them counted out loud.

[Three minutes! She's catching up.]

Knox replied. [She runs with us tonight. Wren's old spot, right behind Ronan.]

Everett added one line. [Wren will mind for a day. Then she'll get over it.]

I didn't answer.

The driver put my suitcase in the trunk.

"Miss Wren, once you reach the station, your phone will be sealed for the program. Anyone else you need to call?"

"No."

I got in.

My phone lit up again. Another photo from Felix.

It was the old oak by the pack gate, where the five of us carved our initials when we were nine.

My W was gone. Someone had scraped the bark down to pale wood. A fresh E sat in its place.

[Elodie wanted to be on the tree too. There was only room for five. Hope you don't mind!]

Knox replied first. [If she minds, she can come back and carve it herself.]

Everett liked the photo.

Ronan was last.

[It's just a tree.]

The car rolled through the gate. I saw the oak through the window. The raw spot on the bark was brighter than all the old letters around it.

Ronan had carved my W for me. My hands were too small to hold the knife steady.

"A wolf never leaves her pack," he told me. "So you're stuck with us."

Now he called it just a tree.

Then the messages stopped.

A minute later, a voice pushed into my head.

Wren, are you seeing this?

Knox.

Felix came next. Come watch her run tonight. She keeps asking for you.

Then Everett, flat and patient. You've made your point. Come tonight.

I didn't answer.

The car turned onto the highway.

Knox again, sharper now. Wren? Why does it feel like you're moving? Their voices began to thin, the way a radio does on a long drive.

Then Ronan.

Stop sulking. Be at the gate by seven. Bring the crystal.

A pause.

Wren.

Even fading, his voice sounded sure. Sure that I would turn around.

I closed my eyes and shut the link.

The four voices went quiet.

Then I deleted their numbers one by one and turned off my phone.

The black screen showed my own face.

Two hours later, the car stopped at the eastern edge of our territory.

Past a line of white stones stood a small station with a silver flag. Silverhaven had held that strip of land for a hundred years. It was the only place their territory touched ours.

A man was waiting beside the stones.

"Alpha Crane," the driver said quietly.

I hadn't expected the Alpha of Silverhaven to come himself.

"The work you'll see in our labs has never left our pack," he said. "I don't send anyone to fetch the people who'll see it. I come myself."

He looked at the burns still fading on my arms. He didn't ask.

His aide held out a gray pouch. I dropped my dead phone inside, and she sealed it.

"Past those stones, your old pack won't be able to find you," Alpha Crane said. "Alpha Vale won't be able to call you home through the pack bond. No one there will."

That pouch had just taken the last thing that could reach me.

"I have to confirm. You're transferring to Silverhaven of your own will?"

"Yes."

I tilted my head and bared my neck to him.

He laid two fingers against my pulse.

Something new settled into my mind. Quiet and steady, like a hand on my shoulder in the dark.

Pain ripped through my chest.

The four childhood bonds began to give way. Knox's went first, snapping like a bowstring. Then Felix's. Then Everett's, cold and quick.

My wolf screamed inside me.

My knees hit the dirt. I pressed both hands flat to my chest and breathed through it.

I didn't turn around.

One bond was left. The oldest. The one tied to Ronan.

And right before it broke, his voice tore through it. Not the mind-link. I had closed that. This came up through the last thread of a promise we made at six, and there was no control left in it at all.

Wren, what are you doing?!