CHAPTER 35: SHIFT WITH ME

I froze.

The night spun around me, flames roaring, shadows twisting, but all I could do was stare across the cliff.

The black wolf’s crimson eyes locked onto mine.

They glowed brighter than fire, deeper than blood, and they did not waver even as Finn’s attacks crashed against the wall of darkness shielding him.

"Yes, you heard me. Shift now and stop wasting our time."

The voice slithered through my mind with the ease of a hand pulling back a curtain.

My breath caught. That voice...

Was it him?

The man who had slipped into my dreams, whose had delivered cryptic notes, whose presence lingered like smoke and mystery? The master of the crow, the one who had whispered of escape in shadows?

Confusion spun my head.

How could he be speaking into my mind?

Whoever he was, yes, he may be an Alpha, his aura too heavy to be anything less. But this was Finn’s land.

By all logic, the Alpha of these lands should be the only one able to force into my thoughts.

Unless—

No. I refused the thought before it could root. I had read stories. Heard tales from women in the pack. Fated mates could reach into each other’s minds. Their bond carved deeper than territory or law.

But I felt no such pull.

His scent rolled across the cliff to me, rich and sharp, the undeniable scent of a dominant wolf, but it stirred nothing of that strong bond everyone believed to be a blessing by the Goddess.

My stomach did not flip. My body did not scream recognition. He was not the other half of my soul.

No, this was something else.

"I don’t feel the wall anymore, Vien. I can come out and escape with you."

Leika’s voice rang within me, snapping me out of my thoughts.

On the cliff, Finn raged.

Fire burst from his jaws in another streak, molten and blinding. The shadows met it again, curling, bending, smothering. The explosion cracked the night but found no flesh to burn.

Finn’s claws scraped at the stone, gouging long marks as his golden eyes blazed. His whole body quivered with fury, muscles taut, barely contained.

I took a step back. Then another. Slowly, quietly, distancing myself from the cliff’s edge while his attention was fixed on the enemy across the way.

I knew him too well. Finn was reckless when pride ruled him, but he was not a fool.

He would not leap into five wolves, not even with his power burning. He was waiting. Waiting for his warriors to arrive, to turn the fight in his favor.

He probably knew I was moving quietly but he didn’t act on it. He thought I had nowhere to go. And even if I did try to run, I couldn’t get anywhere far with two legs.

If his pride blinded him long enough, maybe—just maybe—I could slip free.

I wanted him to leap. To throw himself into a fight he couldn’t win. To be torn apart across the cliff so I would never again have to see his face or hear his voice.

But that was a dream. For now, all I could do was live until I could afford to avenge my mother.

"As much as I want to shred Finn Reiss’s body into pieces," Leika growled, "I need to get you out of here first."

Her words burned. A part of me ached to agree, to dive with her teeth bared and end him for what he had done to my mother.

But I was not strong enough. Not yet.

"We won’t win against him," I answered her, clenching my fists. "Not like this."

I was a Beta’s daughter. My blood carried strength. But what was blood against fire?

Against an Alpha who had sharpened his power through years of battle?

And I had not shifted in three long years.

A howl split the night from behind. Then another.

Levian warriors.

Their voices carried on the wind, announcing their charge, closing in fast. I counted without meaning to.

Four, five... maybe more. Running through the forest in their wolf forms, their bodies thundering, eager for blood.

"You burned my lands," Finn’s voice tore through the night, louder than the fire itself. "I will burn you."

He sent another storm of flame, so hot I had to shield my face.

But the black wolf’s shadows twisted higher, bending and folding, turning the blaze aside. Nothing pierced through.

I kept edging away, step by step, angling from Finn’s position toward the darker cover of the cliff’s corner.

He knew I was moving—he must have smelled me, sensed me. But his focus didn’t break. Why should it? His warriors were coming. His pride told him I had nowhere else to go.

He thought me caged.

"I’m ready," Leika said, her voice pulsing with savage joy. "Say the word, and I’ll rip us free."

I clenched my jaw. I had no word to give, not yet. Not until there was a path.

From across the cliff, the black wolf’s crimson eyes never left me. His warriors stood tight behind him, shielded in the mist, but he didn’t move. He only watched.

Watched me, not Finn.

Waited.

Like a man at a tavern table, waiting for the entertainment to begin.

A shiver crawled through me. I hated his calm. I hated how certain he looked, as if every step I made had been expected.

And then his voice struck me again.

"Jump."

The command hummed in my veins.

My breath caught. My body trembled.

The river roared below, violent and merciless, the rocks slick and sharp. A fall like that would mean death, unless I shifted.

"Vien," Leika urged, her tone fierce, steady. "We can do it. Trust me."

I had no time. The warriors’ howls split the trees behind me, closer, closer, each heartbeat bringing them nearer.

I could already hear the crash of undergrowth as their bodies tore through.

Finn reared back, his golden eyes blazing, his chest burning with heat ready to spill.

And on the other side, the black wolf stood tall, shadows wrapping him and the othe four, his crimson eyes glowing with expectation.

He didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He simply stared. Waiting.

I felt the choice close in on me, strangling.

Stay, and be dragged back into chains. Or leap, and take the hand of a wolf I did not know.

I took a breath, tasted smoke and ash.

"Leika," I whispered.

"I’m here."

"Shift with me."

The power surged before I finished speaking.

My body burned, bones cracking, skin tearing, the pain and release of it after years of silence. Gold light burst from my eyes and poured through me as fur slid over flesh, my limbs reshaping, claws breaking from my paws.

For the first time in years, I stood as wolf.

And before Finn’s fire could strike, before the warriors’ roars split the clearing—

I leapt.

The wind tore through my silver fur. My body arced across the void, the broken bridge far below, the river raging beneath me.

My paws stretched for the other side, every heartbeat endless, the roar of the world drowning everything else.

Behind me came the echo of enraged howls, Finn’s above them all.

And ahead—

The black wolf’s crimson eyes blazed brighter, waiting for me.