The gorge air was split by a long, synchronized howl; a resonant call of a full, nearby pack.
The Beta's ears snapped forward. A low, vibrating growl rumbled in her chest, not at them, but at the horizon. The fur along her spine bristled.
Eris's smile faded.
The deep, synchronized howl of the pack split the gorge air, instantly shattering the relief of the reunion.
Barik, whose relief had just given way to a deep, primal fear, needed no further confirmation. "Everyone inside! Now! Form up at the entrance!" he roared, his voice cutting through the panic.
The recovery team, along with Eris, scrambled back into the cave mouth. Cugat and the rest immediately took the narrow entrance, holding their shields and spears, while men behind them armed themselves with knives, bows, and arrows.
The Beta wolf's warning rumble deepened, her hackles rising.
In seconds, the cave entrance transformed into a small fortress. Shields were braced in a tight wall, with Barik, Cugat, and four other hunters forming the frontline, their spears angled outward like a thorned barricade. The formation was tighter and far better organized than it had been that night, when the wolf pack first struck.
Behind the shield wall, Joeren, Boris, and two others notched arrows. Eris and Kaylah took their places beside the archers, bows raised and ready. The wounded hunters, Renzo and Tonovan, were pushed farther back, along with the movers who could not fight. They stood armed with spears and butcher's knives, ready to serve as the last line of defense.
In the center of the archers, Jag crouched beside Eris, her golden eyes fixed on the entrance, her fangs bared. Though still not fully healed, she was unwilling to hide. She let her cubs be settled protectively near Renzo and Tonovan; even they mirrored their mother, letting out tiny, challenging growls, ready for the onslaught.
Kaylah dropped beside the Beta. "Hold still," she murmured, her voice urgent. "I will hasten the healing a little." The full process had to be slow to allow natural recovery, but with danger closing in, she had no choice but to push her nascent power.
Her palms glowed faintly as she pressed them to Jag's torn flank. The power flickered, unsteady and incomplete, but enough to dull the acute pain. Jag's breathing steadied, she braced herself, prepared to defend the family she had just joined.
A heartbeat later, the pack arrived.
The Alpha himself appeared first. He was massive and scarred, with one eye clouded by silver burns, his fur matted with dried blood of his opponents and his own. The moment he scented the cave, his lips peeled back in raw hunger and fury.
Behind him, his battered pack fanned out. More than a dozen emerged from the brush, ribs showing, fur matted, some limping, some bearing still-fresh wounds. This was not just a scattered brood; it was the broken remains of a recent war. A few of the wolves wore the unmistakable scars of forced submission—former rivals folded under a victorious group. It was the very pack that had besieged Barik's team on that harrowing night.
The Alpha smelled the carcass behind the humans. He wanted it. He would kill for it.
Jag, the Beta, crouched tensely at Eris's side, eyes locked on the approaching Alpha, hatred twisting her gaze. Eris saw the source of that fury: the pack had been reinforced by the shattered remnants of her own, and the Alpha had slain her mate in the recent territorial clash.
A low snarl tore from Jag's throat, raw and trembling with a fierce, unbridled fury that seemed to shake the very air around her.
The first charge came like a gust of wind—swift and fierce. The shield wall held, spears thrusting in tight, coordinated arcs, while a rapid volley of arrows sang through the air. The wolves staggered, their snarls turning to yaws as shafts found flesh, yet they refused to fall back.
The Alpha prowled just beyond the shield wall, his hulking head lowered, eyes fixed on the carcass that lay behind the humans. Hunger and raw fury drove him forward, and the rest of the pack snarled and snapped at the barrier. The cramped mouth of the cave, however, kept the wolves from pouring in 'en masse'.
Eris lowered his bow, his thoughts a frantic storm. The silver essence thrummed through his veins like a cold fire, promising to turn an ordinary arrow into a weapon of death. Yet channeling that power would bleed him dry, draining every ounce of strength, a price he wasn't ready to pay.
The pack fell back just beyond the reach of the defenders' spears, sparing themselves from a costly arrow barrage. With no clear targets, the humans could not afford to waste their precious shafts, and the tension in the cramped entrance held steady.
The Alpha lingered at the cave's throat, his massive frame a dark silhouette against the flickering torchlight. Hunger gnawed at his ribs, a relentless drum that matched the thump of his own heart, but beneath it lay a sharper, colder calculation. He could feel the blood of his fallen packmates still warm in his nostrils, the scent of the humans' fear a tantalizing promise. Each snarl from his wolves echoed his own frustration; they were close, yet the narrow passage turned his strength into a liability.
He replayed the recent clash: the flash of silver that had felled his subordinates, the sudden, searing pain of a blade that had pierced his flank. Those memories hardened his resolve. He weighed the cost of another charge, more teeth lost, more blood spilled against the reward of the carcass that lay just beyond the shield wall, a prize that could restore the pack's dwindling numbers. A low growl rumbled from his chest, not just anger but a strategic whisper.
He would wait, let the humans exhaust their arrows and their patience, then strike when the line wavered. The cave would become a trap, and the Alpha would be the predator that turned the hunters into prey.
The battle locked into a brutal stalemate.
***
The Alpha prowled the ragged lip of the cave, each step sending a thin spray of foam from his snarling jaws onto the cold stone. Around him, the remnants of his pack lingered, some wounded, others already slipping back into the darkness, their breaths shallow, their eyes hollow.
Hunger gnawed at his ribs like a living thing, but it was the metallic tang of silver that made his nostrils flare. It stuck to the air, a phantom scent that seemed to rise not just from the half‑eaten carcass beyond the shield wall but from the very walls themselves, perhaps a lingering residue from the arrows that had found flesh, perhaps something older, a curse etched into the rock.
He would not charge blindly; he would wait until the humans' arrows ran dry. From the edge of the shield wall, Eris felt that stare like a claw scraping across his skin. The Alpha's gaze cut through the dim, a pressure that made the silver in his own veins hum louder.
He tightened his grip on his bow, the weight of the decision settling like a stone in his gut: draw the silver‑tipped arrow and risk draining himself, or hold back and let the pack's hunger drive them to a desperate, bloody charge. The air held its breath, and the cave seemed to listen.
Kaylah saw his shoulders tense. "Eris?"
"He won't stop," Eris said through clenched teeth. "Not until he has what he wants."
Barik's jaw tightened as the stalemate stretched into a thin, unbearable thread. "We can't wait for another pack to stumble onto us," he growled, his voice echoing off the stone. "We push forward! Archers, get ready to move closer!" He thrust his shield forward, the metal ringing against the cave floor, and signaled the line to advance.
The archers followed the shield wall, bows drawn and arrows tipped with the faint gleam of silver. Their steps were careful, each footfall muffled by the packed earth, but the wolves caught the shift instantly. A low, guttural growl rippled through the pack, and the Alpha's eyes narrowed, the scent of silver sharpening his focus.
From the narrow throat of the cave, Eris felt the sudden surge of movement like a cold wind against his skin. He tightened his grip on his own bow, the silver essence in his veins humming in response to the approaching threat. The humans were closing the distance, and the wolves, driven by hunger, fury, and the maddening promise of that metallic scent, prepared to meet them head‑on.
The air held its breath as the two forces converged, the clash of steel, wood, and snarling fury about to erupt.
Jag's eyes blazed with a feral hatred as she caught sight of the Alpha, the beast that had taken her mate. The moment the hulking predator turned its gaze toward her, something snapped. She lunged from the line, claws bared, a guttural snarl tearing from her throat.
A Challenge!
Eris stared, stunned, then instinct took over. His fingers snapped shut on the scruff of her neck, and he barked, "No! Not now! Your wound will open!", the words cutting through her mind like a blade.
He tried to pull her back, muscles straining, but Jag's fury was a tide he could not hold. The raw, animal resolve that had kept her alive through the night surged, and she twisted free, the fresh cut on her flank tearing wider with each desperate pull.
The Alpha's massive head snapped toward the challenger, nostrils flaring as the scent of fresh blood mingled with the metallic tang of silver. For a heartbeat, the cave seemed to hold its breath; then the clash erupted, steel meeting fur, and the echo of Jag's scream blended with Eris's desperate roar. The battle had just taken a personal, brutal turn.
The rescue team scrambled to form a defensive line behind the struggling wolves. Barik and Cugat held the shields, eyes wide as they watched the duel. Jag fought ferociously, but the old injury in her side left her at a disadvantage; the Alpha was also injured, but his superior weight and rank were grinding her down.
Eris saw the brutal desperation in Jag's movements, felt her fury rise, and sensed the inevitable tearing of her old wound.
He had to help her!
He slipped a step back, positioning himself behind the group. Kaylah, who knew his habits, mirrored his movement, and together they fell in behind Joeren and the bowmen unnoticed.
Eris closed his eyes and instantly relaxed his body and mind. He focused his will, initiating a silent, psychic assault: the mind‑attack that he had yet to master. It was a strenuous but more subtle assault. He began to pour a torrent of confusion and raw pain into the Alpha's consciousness.
Rather than summoning fragile silver spikes or a destructive silver-laden arrow, he let the pulse linger, a faint mental pressure that would sap the beast's focus without draining his own essence. It was swift and silent, but just as deadly, and it would keep his secret safe for now.
Focus. Reach. Push.
It was like forcing his mind through dense, snarled fog, resisting at every inch. The Alpha's thoughts were wild, feral, hot as coals. Eris felt teeth, blood, the pure instinct to kill or die, and he gasped, the mental resistance throwing him back.
The Alpha, meanwhile, jerked violently, shaking its head as if swatting away invisible insects.
Not enough.
Just then, Kaylah moved swiftly. She placed her hand on Eris's arm, steadying him, grounding him. Her warmth surged into him like a deep breath after drowning, channeling her nascent magical energy to boost his concentration.
Silver light flickered in Eris's veins. He pushed again. Hard.
The effect this time was instantaneous. The Alpha let out a sharp, agonizing yelp, not of pain from teeth but of sudden, incapacitating neurological trauma. It shrieked, staggering backward as if struck by an invisible blade. The Alpha's mind recoiled, a flicker of doubt crossing its feral eyes, giving his opponent a brief opening.
This stumble gave Jag the fractional edge she desperately needed. She locked her powerful jaws onto the Alpha's throat.
The duel ended swiftly. Jag wrenched free, leaving the Alpha collapsing with a dull, final thud. Blood burst from his nostrils, then his ears, before seeping from his eyes. He was dead before he hit the ground.
The pack, witnessing the sudden, unnatural demise of their leader, froze. Then, following the most ancient law of the pack, they turned their attention to the victor. Jag stood over the corpse, and this time, the sound they heard wasn't a triumphant howl. It was vengeance, pure and simple.
Jag snarls were short, sharp, and satisfied. Her gaze held the dead Alpha with a hatred so deep that even the humans felt its heat. Then she turned away, shoulders visibly lighter, as if a lifetime of burden had finally unclenched
The echo of the Alpha's collapse lingered in the cave like a broken curse.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Only the soft patter of blood dripping from the wolf's ruined muzzle marked the passing of time.
Jag stood over the fallen Alpha's corpse, her fur ruffled, flanks still heaving from pain and fury.
But her eyes… those fierce, molten-gold eyes… burned with something unmistakable.
Dominance!
***
Jag's howl cracked the cavern like a struck bell, raw and ragged, reverberating off stone and bone. The sound was not a song but a declaration, a claim forged from grief, fury, and the will to survive. It hung in the air, heavy with the weight of loss, and then fell silent, leaving only the echo of its own ferocity.
The remaining wolves, gaunt survivors of two brutal fights and the scattered remnants of Jag's former pack, froze as the howl struck them. One by one, their heads bowed, ears flattened, bodies sinking into the cold floor in a gesture of submission.
She was now the new Alpha!
Jag stood, paws planted firmly on the stone, the ragged howl still resonating in her chest. In that single, breath-stopping moment, she shed the identity of Beta and wounded survivor. The mantle of Alpha settled onto her shoulders, not through brute strength alone but through the raw, unyielding spirit she had summoned.
Eris felt the change instantly. The mental pressure that had momentarily staggered the fallen Alpha dissolved, replaced by a new, sharper focus emanating from Jag. Kaylah's hand tightened around his arm, a silent acknowledgment that the tide had turned.
Barik and Cugat exchanged a glance, shields still raised but now angled toward the newly crowned Alpha and her minions, who were ready to follow her lead. The battle, once a desperate fight for survival, had shifted into a test of leadership; one that Jag was now poised to command.
Jag's golden eyes flicked from the trembling wolves to the line of human shields, each breath a thin cloud in the cold air. The weight of her new authority settled like a stone in her chest, but beneath, it pulsed a fierce, hungry resolve. She had just claimed the pack; now she needed to claim a future.
She lifted one paw, the stone beneath her claws gritty, and took a single, deliberate step forward. The movement was a silent challenge, a promise that the pack would not starve while she stood. The humans tightened their grips on spears and bows, the tension in the air thick enough to taste.
Eris felt the silver in his veins flare, a cold rush that threatened to betray his secret. He forced the sensation down, focusing instead on the surge of energy that seemed to ripple from Jag's presence. Beside him, Kaylah's hand tightened on his arm, grounding him, while Barik's knuckles whitened around his spear.
Jag's golden eyes locked with theirs, steady, calculating, burdened with the authority she had just claimed. Her pack needed food.
And she had found an answer.
The air thickened, no one daring to breathe.
And then Jag took a single, decisive step.
Toward the humans.
Toward her pack.
Toward a choice that could save them all...
—or shatter the fragile trust she had built.
***