Chapter 3

The weight of the wolf above me was suffocating. Its hot breath ghosted over my skin, every fiber of my body screaming to shift, to fight, to tear my way free but I didn't, not yet.

Ryker knelt beside me, his silver eyes gleaming under the moonlight. There was something infuriatingly calm about him, as if this moment, the hunt, the capture, my fury, was all just part of a plan he had long since prepared for.

"Let her up," Ryker commanded.

A moment of hesitation. Then, with a low growl, the wolf lifted its massive paws off my chest and stepped back. I inhaled sharply, my ribs aching as I pushed myself onto my elbows.

The pack had emerged from the shadows now, half-shifted forms circling like ghosts in the trees. They were watching, waiting for their Alpha's command. I should have been afraid because I was outnumbered and caught. But fear was drowned beneath the seething anger curling in my veins.

"You act like you're giving me a choice," I rasped, brushing dirt from my palms as I slowly rose to my feet.

"You always have a choice, Lyra," Ryker said, his voice smooth as steel. "You just may not like the options."

My fingers curled into fists. "And what are my options?"

"Listen."

I scoffed. "And if I don't?"

His gaze darkened. "Then I let my wolves do what they do best."

The threat was quiet deadly but there was something else beneath it. He didn't want to hurt me. That much was clear but he would if I made him. A tense silence stretched between us, thick as fog. I could feel the weight of the pack pressing in, waiting for my answer.

I wanted to refuse and throw his offer back at his face, shifted, and made them work for their kill. But something about Ryker's words lingered in my mind.

"If you're looking for revenge, you might want to know who your real enemy is."

My parents' killers, the truth I already know? Or thought I knew. What if, just what if Ryker wasn't lying? I hated myself for it, but I needed answers.

"Fine," I gritted out. "Talk."

A flicker of something passed through his expression, approval, maybe relief.

"Not here," he said. "Follow me."

He turned, moving toward the trees, the pack shifting around him like shadows. I hesitated, my instincts screaming at me to run, to fight, to do anything but follow him. And then, from deep within the forest, I heard it, a sound that didn't belong to the wolves a whisper of magic in the wind. A voice low, twisted, laced with power chanting in a language I didn't recognize. Goosebumps prickled my arms. I looked toward Ryker, he stood there on one spot as if he also heard the voices and the pack went silent.

Then the earth beneath us trembled, and the night itself seemed to breathe. A shadow darker than the forest itself began to rise from the ground. And I knew with a sick certainty that whatever was coming was not of this world.

The ground beneath my feet shuddered, the tremor rippling through the earth like a warning. The air grew heavy, thick with the scent of something unnatural, something wrong.

I wasn't the only one who felt it. Ryker's stance shifted, his muscles tensing as his silver eyes flickered to the darkness beyond the trees. The pack followed his gaze, their half-shifted forms rigid with unease. Then I heard it again, that voice, a whisper curling through the air like smoke ancient and twisted. Not spoken but felt vibrating in my bones, rattling something deep within me. The shadows beyond the trees thickened, bleeding into the ground like ink spilled across a page. It moved alive, pulsing, shifting. And then I saw it, a figure emerging from the dark. A man cloaked in black, his features veiled in the twisting void that swirled around him. Power crackled in the air thick and suffocating.

"Zephyr The warlock" I whispered, my lips barely moving .

The name burned through me, a whisper of recognition clawing at the edges of my mind. Sha had spoken of him in hushed tones warning me of the darkness that lurked in Eldrador the city of warlocks and witches.

"A man who wielded magic like a blade. A man who sought to end werewolves entirely". Remembering those words from Sha.

And he was here.

"Well," Zephyr mused, his voice a slow drawl, laced with something sharp and cruel. "It seems I've arrived just in time."

The shadows writhed at his feet, coiling around him like living things.

"Warlock," Ryker growled, stepping forward, his hands flexing at his sides. "This is not your fight."

Zephyr tilted his head, amusement flickering in his darkened eyes. "Oh, but it is, Alpha," he murmured. "Everything in this forest is my fight."

His gaze slid to me then, slow and knowing.

"And you," he continued, his voice dripping with something almost like delight. "The last heir of the ancient bloodline. How poetic."

My pulse roared in my ears. "Stay out of my way," I spat.

Zephyr only smiled. Then with a flick of his wrist the shadows surged forward. The ground beneath me cracked open, a jagged wound splitting through the earth. Darkness erupted from its depths thick and suffocating. And then before I could move, before I could shift, before I could even breathe the shadows swallowed me whole.