Chapter 73

Alaric

The moonlight barely cut through the canopy, casting silver slivers over the forest floor. Snow had fallen lightly earlier, dusting the pine needles beneath my paws as I moved. But I hardly noticed any of that.

My mind was only on one thing: Elara.

And her scent was in the air, faint but present. She hadn’t just left. She wouldn’t do that.

No. She had been taken. I wasn’t sure how or why, but I was sure of it. I could feel it in my bones, in every fiber of my being, like it was the surest thing I’d ever felt beyond loving her or Ella or Zoe.

I pressed forward, weaving through the narrow paths between the trees, my nose low to the ground as I followed that faint scent. But beneath the crispness of the frost and pine trees, there was something else there. Fainter—hidden.

Sarah’s scent.

I slowed.

Her scent was tangled up with Elara’s—unmistakable, sharp where Elara’s was soft. They had crossed paths here.

I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

The weight in my chest grew heavier the further I went. The more Sarah’s presence curled around the edges of Elara’s fading scent, the deeper it sank into my heart, coiling with the dread that I’d been feeling for days.

Sarah.

The woman I once thought I loved.

I had spent years imagining this moment—how it would feel to have her return. How I would pull her into my arms and tell her how much I had missed her. I thought I would wake from the nightmare of her death and that everything would just snap back into place.

And now she was back, alive and well. Technically, all of my dreams should have been coming true.

But there was no relief. No longing. Just cold disbelief, and… something else. Something darker.

Sarah was… different now. Once, her smile had been radiant enough to warm the moon. But now there was something cold and calculating in her eyes, something hidden just beneath the surface. She wasn’t the same.

Or maybe she was the same all along. And maybe now she was just being less careful about putting up her facade.

Had I been blind all those years we were together? Had Sarah always been like this, and I had simply refused to see it? Or was she only just now revealing her true colors, now that Elara was in the picture?

I growled low in my throat, shaking the thought from my head. Now wasn’t the time for this.

Elara was somewhere up ahead, alive. Right now, that was the only thing in the entire world that mattered.

The forest thinned near the ridge, and I halted at the edge of an outcropping of trees. Below, nestled among the roots of an old pine, was a narrow entrance. Barely more than a crack in the ground, but Sarah’s scent poured from it.

I shifted back into my human form and immediately pressed forward without a moment of hesitation.

The descent was steep, the tunnel closing around me as I slipped beneath the earth. The air grew damp, clinging to my skin like a fine mist as I pressed forward. Faint voices echoed somewhere in the distance, too low to catch words.

But I knew.

I felt her.

Elara’s presence flickered faintly ahead, like a heartbeat straining against the stones.

When I stepped into the open cavern, the flickering light of lanterns swung against the walls. Rows of cells lined the space—cold iron bars jutting from stone. But it was the figure standing in the center that caught my attention.

Sarah.

And the blade of a knife glinting at Elara’s stomach.

Elara’s wrists were bound in iron, her hair hanging limp around her face as she stared up at Sarah with fire in her eyes, but fear rippled beneath it.

The roar escaped me before I could stop myself. It echoed through the space, making even Elara flinch. But when her eyes met mine and I saw the profound relief in their depths, that was all that mattered to me.

Sarah’s head simply tilted, not even bothering to glance at me over her shoulder. But the knife stilled in her hand, as if she were considering the weight of what she was about to do.

“I was wondering when you’d find us,” she said, her voice as smooth as silk. “I hoped you’d come so you could see this, but you’re a little later than I expected. Maybe you didn’t try hard enough.”

The growl rumbled in my chest before I could stop it, my hands curling into fists at my sides.

“Step away from her.”

Sarah’s fingers trailed along the hilt of the knife, tracing its edge as if she hadn’t heard me.

“Do you know how long I planned this?” she mused, glancing down at Elara. “Six years… All for it to unravel because of you.”

Elara’s eyes flicked to mine, and the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding left my chest.

She was alive.

That was enough to make me move.

I shifted.

But Sarah shifted in an instant, too, her wolf colliding with mine in a blur of fur and teeth. The force of our clash sent us skidding across the stone, our claws scraping against the floor as we circled each other.

Her snarl was sharp, her teeth bared as she lunged again, aiming directly for my throat. I twisted, catching her mid-leap and slamming her down with enough force to rattle the walls.

But Sarah wasn’t weak.

She twisted beneath me, her jaws snapping at my flank before I drove her back, pinning her against the bars of a cell.

Her claws raked across my shoulder, drawing blood as she shoved me off, circling with slow, deliberate steps.

I lunged, catching her mid-stride. We hit the ground hard, and I felt her ribs strain beneath the weight. But just as I went for her throat, her form rippled beneath me, shifting back.

I froze.

Her human face stared up at me, her eyes dark with something colder than hatred.

And then the knife slid between my ribs. Not deep—just enough to graze the skin. But it was enough for her sinister purposes.

The paralytic burned as it sank into my veins, spreading like wildfire beneath my skin. I stumbled back, shifting back into my human form as I fell to one knee, my hand clutching the spot where her knife had dug into my skin.

Sarah simply wiped the blade on her sleeve, watching as I struggled to rise. My limbs didn’t feel like my own anymore. Everything felt heavy, weak. Useless. All from a tiny cut that hardly even drew blood.

“I should thank you, really,” she said softly. “You made this all too easy.”

My vision blurred.

“Elara—”

I could barely speak, my body growing heavier with every second. All I could do was watch as Sarah calmly turned back toward Elara, intent on murdering her right in front of me. And I knew, then, that Sarah wanted me to watch. She loved it. She craved it.

But then the air shifted.

A brilliant silver light suddenly filled the space, so bright it blinded me, so bright it made Sarah stiffen. And through it all, Elara’s voice cried out like a thousand bells.

“No!!!”