Chapter 5
I cleared a thicket of dead brambles and burst into the open expanse of the cliffside.
He was standing on the precipice, watching the churning white water three hundred feet below.
Valen had not shifted into his wolf. He wore dark, salt-stained leathers, an unfastened fur-trimmed mantle resting on his broad shoulders, his short dark hair whipped by the fierce updraft from the gorge. He didn't have his weapons drawn. His hands were clasped loosely behind his back, his posture loose, arrogant, and entirely indifferent to the fact that he was standing on enemy ground.
I didn't hesitate. I didn't announce myself.
I threw my full weight forward, launching my silver-coated body through the air, fangs aimed directly for the exposed junction of his throat and shoulder.
Valen moved with a fluid, terrifying speed that defied his massive frame.
He didn't draw a blade. He didn't even widen his stance. At the very last fraction of a second, his left arm came up, his forearm—wrapped in thick, studded leather—catching me beneath the jaw mid-leap to redirect my momentum.
His right hand clamped around the scruff of my neck with the crushing, inescapable grip of a vice.
The impact drove the breath from my lungs. We hit the snowy bank together, tumbling across the frosted rock. But before my claws could rake across his belly, Valen pinned me. His massive weight settled over my ribs, pressing me firmly into the hard slate, trapping my forepaws beneath his shins while his hand remained locked on the back of my neck, his thumb resting precisely over the pressure point behind my ear.
I writhed, snapping my jaws inches from his face, spraying flecks of white foam against his cheek.
Valen didn't flinch.
His golden eyes blazed down into mine, completely steady, burning with a lethal, concentrated heat that held neither fear nor malice—only an immovable, iron resolve.
"Shift, Clara," he commanded.
The Alpha resonance in his voice hit my eardrums like the strike of a bronze bell. It vibrated straight through my skull, commanding obedience at a primal, cellular level.
My wolf shrieked in outrage, resisting the order with every shred of defiance I possessed. I snarled, thrashing against his grip until the skin of my shoulder scraped bloody against the jagged stones.
"I said *shift*," Valen growled, his voice dropping half an octave, the golden ring around his pupils flaring like molten brass. "Unless you want me to hold you down in the snow until your lungs freeze. Look at yourself. You can barely maintain your form."
The truth of his words was an insult that stung worse than the stone beneath my back.
My hind legs were already trembling violently. The strain of the leap had sent black spots dancing across my vision. The dragging rot in my chest seized, squeezing my heart until a sharp yelp tore from my throat.
The fur receded.
The snapping of bone and reforming of muscle left me gasping on the frozen earth, my skin bare against the bitter mountain air, shivering uncontrollably.
Valen immediately released his crushing grip on my neck, but he didn't step away. He swept his heavy fur mantle from his shoulders with one fluid motion and threw it over me, wrapping the thick, heavy wool around my trembling body before I could roll away.
I scrambled backward against the face of a granite boulder, dragging the cloak tightly around my chest, my hands shaking so violently my knuckles clicked together.
"You bastard," I panted, tasting blood on my split lip. "You crossed the boundary. I will have your head on a spike at the gates."
Valen stood over me, towering against the gray sky like a monument carved from dark rock. The wind pulled at his dark hair, revealing the sharp, aristocratic line of his jaw and the jagged scar cutting through the crest of his left eyebrow.
"You can barely hold a silver dagger, Luna," he said, his voice flat, devoid of mockery. "Who is going to put my head on a spike? Your decrepit council? Or the Beta who pisses his breeches every time my border patrols take a piss in the river?"
"Get away from me," I hissed, pushing myself up against the boulder. My knees nearly buckled, but I locked them, refusing to look up at him from the dirt. "If you came to execute me, do it. Stop playing games with my pack's territory."
"If I wanted you dead, Clara, I would have left you alone in your manor," Valen said, taking a deliberate step toward me.
I tensed, my hand instinctively reaching for a dagger that wasn't there.
Valen’s gaze locked onto the collar of the heavy cloak, where the faint, bitter stench of sulfur seeped through the wool. He reached forward toward the lapel, his hand moving to point out the seam.
"Don't touch me!" I snarled, striking hard at his wrist.
Valen checked his motion instantly. He did not force his grip; instead, he withdrew his arm and took half a step back, his broad shoulders squared against the bitter wind. His jaw tightened, but his golden eyes remained clinical, piercing, and entirely unmoved.
"I don't need to touch you to smell celestial decay, Luna," he said, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly rasp. "You reek of scorched sulfur and rotting marrow. If you truly believe you are carrying the sacred grief of a fallen mate, pull the wool aside yourself. Look at what you are protecting."
The challenge hit my raw pride like a lash. He thought I was cowering. He thought I was afraid to face the reality of my mate's sacrifice.
"There is nothing on my flesh but Logan's mark," I spat.
To prove him wrong—to throw his accusations back into his teeth—I gripped the heavy collar with my own trembling fingers and yanked the fur aside, exposing my bare collarbone to the biting mountain gale.
The freezing air bit into my skin, but the cold was eclipsed by the grotesque reality laid bare.
The spiderweb veins of necrotic violet were stark and hideous against my pale flesh, pulsing in foul, rhythmic spasms that mocked the shape of the crescent scar.
Valen’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. His molten gold eyes locked onto the creeping poison, narrowing with a fury so dark and primordial it seemed to lower the temperature of the gorge.
"Look at it," Valen whispered, his voice dangerously low, gesturing toward the exposed necrosis. "Look at what he left you."
"It is the curse," I rasped, my throat constricting as I pulled the heavy fur back over the wound, clutching the wool tight against my chest. My heart was hammering like a trapped bird. "The generational purge of Silverpine. Logan absorbed it into his soul—"
"Logan absorbed nothing!" Valen roared, the sound echoing off the canyon walls with the force of an avalanche.
The birds in the surrounding pines erupted into the sky, shrieking in terror.
"He died for us!" I screamed back, tears of sheer, helpless rage finally burning behind my eyes. "I watched him dissolve! I held the thread! I felt him disintegrate into soul-ash with my own hands!"
