Calyn's POV
"We need to leave. Right now."
Rhea's voice is urgent as she grabs supplies from a hidden cache near the stream. My mind is still reeling from what I just learned.
I'm a Void. An extinct species. The most dangerous wolf alive.
"Where can we possibly go?" I ask, touching my face. My eyes are still glowing silver—I can feel the difference, like there's lightning running through my veins. "You just said everyone will hunt me."
"Not everyone." Rowan is scanning the forest, tense and alert. "There are wolves who don't follow the Council's laws. Outcasts. Rogues who've rejected the pack system."
"You mean criminals," I say flatly.
"I mean survivors." His silver eyes—matching mine now—lock on me. "The same thing you are."
A howl echoes in the distance. Then another. And another.
"They're calling for backup," Rhea says grimly. "Matthias knows you're here. He'll send his entire pack if he has to."
"Then we run," Rowan decides. "There's a safe house three miles north. We can—"
"No."
The voice comes from the trees. A voice I know too well.
My brother steps into the clearing.
Matthias looks exactly like I remember—tall, broad-shouldered, with the same dark hair and brown eyes we inherited from our father. But there's something different about him now. Something harder. Colder.
He's not alone. Twenty wolves emerge from the forest behind him, surrounding us completely.
We're trapped.
"Hello, sister," Matthias says calmly. "You're looking well for someone who was supposed to be dead."
My heart is pounding so hard I think it might break through my chest. "Stay away from me."
"I'm afraid I can't do that." He takes a step closer. "You're a danger to every pack in the region. Darius told me what you did—stealing Alpha essence. Do you understand how terrifying that is?"
"I didn't ask for this!"
"No, you didn't." His voice is almost sympathetic. Almost. "Father cursed you with this ability and then hid it from everyone. From me. His own son and heir. Do you know how that makes me look? That my own sister is a Void and I had no idea?"
"Is that what this is about?" Anger flares in my chest. "Your reputation?"
"This is about keeping our pack safe!" Matthias snaps. "Voids are dangerous. They consume power until there's nothing left. They can't be controlled or reasoned with. They're parasites."
"I'm your sister," I whisper.
Something flickers across his face—pain, maybe, or regret. But it's gone in an instant.
"You stopped being my sister the day you betrayed the pack," he says coldly. "Now you're just a threat that needs to be eliminated."
Rowan shifts immediately, positioning himself between me and Matthias. Rhea does the same. But we're outnumbered four to one.
"You'll have to go through me," Rowan growls.
Matthias studies him with interest. "The infamous Ice Alpha. I've heard stories about you. They say you're ruthless. Efficient. That you've never lost a fight." He smiles. "But even you can't take twenty wolves alone."
"Try me."
"Stop!" I push forward, despite Rowan's warning growl. "Matthias, please. I don't want to fight you. I don't want anyone else to get hurt."
"Then come quietly," my brother says. "Submit to judgment. If you're truly innocent, the Council will—"
"The Council will execute her," Rhea interrupts sharply. "Everyone knows what happens to Voids. There is no trial. There is no mercy."
Matthias doesn't deny it. "Then she should've stayed buried."
The words hit me like a physical blow. My own brother—the boy who used to read me bedtime stories, who taught me to swim, who promised to always protect me—wishes I was dead.
Something inside me breaks.
And the power surges.
It explodes out of me in a wave so strong that every wolf in the clearing staggers. I feel it—their strength, their energy, their very essence being pulled toward me like a magnet.
"Calyn, stop!" Rowan shouts. "You'll kill them all!"
But I can't stop. The power is in control now, not me. It's hungry. Desperate. It wants to consume everything.
Matthias drops to his knees, gasping. His wolves collapse around him, whimpering in pain.
"Please," my brother chokes out. "Calyn... please..."
Seeing him like this—weak, vulnerable, begging—something shifts in me. Despite everything he's done, he's still my brother. I can't kill him.
I force the power down, wrestling it back into submission. It fights me, screaming to be released, but I lock it away.
The energy stops flowing. The wolves collapse, unconscious but breathing.
All except Matthias. He's still conscious, but barely. He stares up at me with something like horror.
"What are you?" he whispers.
"I don't know," I tell him honestly. "But I'm not going to let you or anyone else tell me I don't deserve to live."
I turn to leave, but his voice stops me.
"Father knew."
I freeze. "What?"
"He knew what you were before you were born." Matthias coughs, struggling to breathe. "Mother was pregnant with you when a seer told them the truth. That you'd be a Void. Father wanted to... to end the pregnancy. But Mother refused."
My world tilts. "Father wanted to kill me?"
"He was afraid," Matthias continues, his voice weak. "Afraid of what you'd become. But Mother loved you too much. So they made a deal with a witch. She bound your power before you were born and erased everyone's memories of the prophecy. Only Father remembered. He kept the secret until he died."
Tears burn my eyes. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you deserve to know the truth." He looks at me, and for just a second, I see my brother again. The real Matthias. "Father didn't bind your power to protect you from others, Calyn. He did it to protect others from you."
The words are like a knife to the heart.
"The prophecy said you'd consume everything," Matthias whispers. "That you'd drain every wolf in the world until there was nothing left. That you were born to be the end of our kind."
"No." I shake my head violently. "No, that's not true. I'm not a monster—"
"Then why can't you control it?" he asks. "Why does the power take over every time you use it? Face it, sister. Father was right to fear you."
I want to scream. To rage. To prove him wrong.
But I can't. Because he's right.
Every time the power emerges, I lose control. It wants to consume. To drain. To destroy.
Maybe I am a monster.
Rowan's hand touches my shoulder, pulling me back to reality. "We need to go. Now. Before he recovers."
I let him guide me away, Rhea following close behind. We run through the forest, leaving my brother and his wolves behind.
But I can't escape his words.
Born to be the end of our kind.
We run for hours, until my legs give out and I collapse. Rowan catches me before I hit the ground.
"I'm a monster," I sob. "My own father wanted me dead. The prophecy—"
"Prophecies aren't fate," Rowan says firmly. "They're warnings. Possibilities. Not certainties."
"But what if Matthias is right? What if I can't control this? What if I end up destroying everyone?"
Rhea kneels beside me. "Then we teach you control. We find a way to make the power serve you instead of the other way around."
"How? You said Voids are extinct. There's no one who can teach me—"
"There's someone," Rowan interrupts. His face is grim. "Someone who might know how to help you. But it's dangerous."
"Who?" I ask desperately.
"The witch who bound your power in the first place," he says. "She's still alive. Living in the Deadlands, beyond pack territory. If anyone knows how a Void can control their abilities, it's her."
Hope flares in my chest. "Then we find her."
"It's not that simple," Rhea warns. "The Deadlands are called that for a reason. Wolves who go there don't come back. The witch—her name is Morgana—she doesn't help people out of kindness. She'll want something in return."
"I don't care," I say. "I'll give her whatever she wants. I just need to learn control before I hurt someone I care about."
Rowan and Rhea exchange a long look.
"There's something else," Rowan says carefully. "Something you need to know before we do this."
My stomach tightens. "What?"
He hesitates, then: "The witch who bound your power? She's my grandmother."
I stare at him. "Your... what?"
"My mother was Morgana's daughter," he explains. "She left the Deadlands when she was young to join a pack. That's where she met my father. Morgana never forgave her for leaving. When my mother was killed, she blamed my father. Blamed me for being born."
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Because I haven't spoken to her in fourteen years," he admits. "Not since my parents died. She told me I was tainted by pack life and sent me away. Said I was weak for choosing hierarchy over freedom."
"But you're taking me to her anyway?"
His silver eyes—so like mine now—meet mine with fierce determination. "Because you need her. And despite everything, she's the best chance we have."
I nod slowly. "Then we go to the Deadlands."
"It's three days' journey from here," Rhea says. "And we'll need to avoid pack territories. If word spreads that you're a Void, every Alpha in the region will be hunting you."
"They're already hunting me," I point out.
"Fair point." She manages a small smile. "Then we leave at dawn."
That night, we make camp in a cave. Rhea goes to scout the perimeter while Rowan starts a small fire.
I sit staring at the flames, my mind racing. Everything I thought I knew about myself, about my father, about my very existence—it's all been a lie.
"You're thinking too loud," Rowan comments.
Despite everything, I almost smile. "How can you tell?"
"You get this crease between your eyebrows when you're worried." He sits beside me. "What are you thinking about?"
"My father," I admit. "Matthias said he wanted to kill me before I was born. That he was afraid of what I'd become."
"Fear makes people do terrible things," Rowan says quietly. "But it doesn't make them right."
"What if he was right, though? What if I am too dangerous to exist?"
"Then you'd have killed me already." He says it so matter-of-factly that I blink at him. "You could've drained me completely multiple times. Instead, you stopped. You controlled the power just enough to survive without destroying everyone around you. That's not a monster, Calyn. That's someone who's learning."
His faith in me makes my chest ache. "Why do you believe in me so much?"
"Because I see what others don't." His hand covers mine. "They see a Void. A threat. An extinction-level danger. But I see a woman who climbed out of her own grave, who chose mercy over revenge, who's fighting every day to be better than what others expect."
I look down at our joined hands. "I'm scared."
"Good," he says. "Fear means you understand the stakes. It means you won't be reckless." He squeezes my hand. "But don't let that fear convince you that you're the monster they say you are."
Before I can respond, Rhea bursts back into the cave, her face pale.
"We have a problem."
Rowan is on his feet instantly. "What is it?"
"I saw campfires. Dozens of them." She's breathing hard. "At least five different packs are setting up perimeter camps around this area. They're coordinating a search grid."
"How long until they find us?" I ask.
"Hours. Maybe less." Rhea looks at Rowan. "The Council must have issued a kill order. This isn't just Matthias anymore. This is organized."
My heart sinks. "They're going to find us."
"Not if we move now," Rowan says. He's already gathering our supplies. "We head for the Deadlands tonight. It's our only chance."
"Through five pack territories in the dark?" Rhea sounds incredulous. "That's suicide."
"Staying here is certain death," Rowan counters. "At least this way we have a chance."
I stand, forcing my exhausted body to move. "Then we go now."
We pack quickly and slip out of the cave into the night. The forest is dark and full of sounds—every snapping twig makes my heart race.
We've been moving for maybe an hour when I hear it.
Howls. Dozens of them. Coming from every direction.
"They've found our trail," Rowan says grimly. "Run!"
We sprint through the darkness, branches whipping our faces. Behind us, the howls get closer. Louder.
"There!" Rhea points ahead. "The border to the Deadlands!"
I see it—a line of dead trees marking where pack territory ends. Beyond it, the forest looks twisted and wrong, like something out of a nightmare.
We're fifty yards away when wolves burst out of the trees on either side of us.
Twenty. Thirty. Maybe more. All snarling, all ready to kill.
We're surrounded again.
A massive gray wolf steps forward and shifts. It's Elder Vasik—the head of the Council. His face is cold and merciless.
"Calyn Merewood," he announces. "By order of the Werewolf Council, you are hereby sentenced to death. The sentence will be carried out immediately."
"No trial?" I ask, already knowing the answer.
"Voids don't get trials," he says simply. "They get executed."
Rowan shifts, ready to fight to the death. But even he can't take this many wolves.
This is it. This is how I die—hunted like an animal, executed like a criminal, all because of what I was born to be.
But then something happens.
The dead trees at the Deadlands border suddenly move.
Branches stretch and twist like living things, reaching toward us. The wolves attacking us yelp and back away as roots burst from the ground, creating a barrier between us and them.
And from the darkness of the Deadlands, a figure emerges.
She's ancient—impossibly old, with white hair and eyes that glow like green fire. She's wearing tattered robes and carries a staff carved with symbols I don't recognize.
The witch. Morgana.
"Well, well," she says, her voice like crackling leaves. "Rowan. My disappointing grandson. It's been a long time." Her glowing eyes shift to me. "And you must be the Void child. Thomas Merewood's cursed daughter."
"Please," I gasp. "Help us."
She tilts her head, studying me like I'm an insect. "Help you? Why would I do that? I was paid handsomely to bind your power and keep you weak. Why would I undo my own work?"
"Because I'll give you anything," I beg. "Whatever you want. Just please—"
"Anything?" She smiles, and it's terrifying. "Careful, child. I always collect my debts."
"I don't care! Just save us!"
The smile widens. "Very well. But remember—you agreed to this."
She raises her staff, and the forest explodes with magic.
The roots surge forward, grabbing wolves and dragging them backward. Elder Vasik screams orders, but it's chaos. The entire Council hunting party is being pushed back by living trees.
"Come!" Morgana commands. "Cross the border! Now!"
We don't hesitate. We sprint across the line into the Deadlands.
The moment we cross, everything changes. The air feels thick and wrong. The trees look diseased. Even gravity seems different.
But we're safe. For now.
I turn back to see Elder Vasik and his wolves stopped at the border, unable to cross. The magic prevents them.
"You can't hide in there forever, Void!" Vasik shouts. "Eventually you'll have to come out! And when you do, we'll be waiting!"
Morgana laughs—a sound like breaking glass. "My dear Elder, by the time she comes out, you won't want to face her anymore." She turns those terrible glowing eyes on me. "Because I'm going to teach her exactly what a Void can become. And trust me, child—you haven't seen anything yet."
She walks deeper into the Deadlands, expecting us to follow.
Rowan takes my hand. "Last chance to change your mind."
I look back at the Council wolves, at Matthias somewhere in that crowd, at the entire werewolf world that wants me dead.
Then I look at the twisted forest ahead.
"No going back now," I say.
We follow the witch into the darkness.
And as we walk, I hear her voice drifting back to us:
"You wanted to learn control, Void child? Then prepare yourself. Because what I'm going to teach you will change you forever. The question is: will you survive the transformation?"