I don’t remember how long I ran.

Long enough for my lungs to burn and my feet to split open on the stones. Long enough for the screams to fade behind me, until the forest was just shadows and the sound of my heartbeat. When I finally collapsed, it was beside a river that smelled of pine and rain. My body hit the mud, and for a while, I couldn’t tell if the blood soaking my skin was mine or someone else’s.

I remember thinking this was it. That maybe the Goddess had shown mercy at last.

Then I heard laughter.

At first, I thought it was in my head — a cruel trick, echoes of the life I’d lost. But it grew louder and clearer. Paws splashing through water. High, excited voices.

Pups.

I tried to move, but my limbs were too heavy. I could only lift my head enough to see them — four of them muddy and wild-eyed, playing at the river’s edge. They froze when they saw me. One whimpered. The smallest one, a little girl with silver streaks in her hair, took a cautious step forward.

“Papa!” she shouted, voice trembling. “There’s someone here!”

I wanted to tell her to run. That monsters wore human faces, that blood drew worse things than wolves. But my throat refused to work.

The last thing I saw before the dark took me again was the reflection of the moon on the water — still red, still bleeding.

When I woke, I was warm.

The smell of smoke and herbs filled the air. A soft blanket covered me, though it couldn’t mask the ache in my ribs or the raw sting of half-healed wounds. I was in a cabin — small, tidy, walls lined with old books and jars. The fire crackled quietly.

A woman sat across from me, grinding something in a stone bowl. Her eyes flicked up when I moved. “You’re awake,” she said. Her voice was calm but edged with wariness. “You’re lucky our pups found you before the rogues did.”

“Where… where am I?” My voice was sandpaper.

“Ironclaw territory,” she said simply. “I’m Mara, the healer. You’ve been out for two days.” Ironclaw. I’d heard the name whispered before — a pack that used to be scattered rogues, brought together by an Alpha who’d clawed his way out of chaos. A man who’d once been feared and learned to lead instead of destroy.

Mara leaned closer, inspecting the bandages around my shoulder. “What pack are you from?”

The question stabbed through me. I hesitated, forcing my face into something blank. “None. I was traveling. Got caught in a fight.”

Her brow furrowed. “A fight that left you with claw marks this deep?”

I turned my head away. “I don’t remember much.”

She didn’t believe me — I could see it in the way her lips pressed together. But she didn’t push. “You’ll have to tell Kane eventually,” she said. “He doesn’t like secrets.” Neither did I. But some secrets kept you alive.

Kane came that night.

I felt his presence before I heard him — heavy, commanding, the kind of power that fills a room and makes the air hum. When he stepped into the cabin, the firelight caught the scars across his forearms. His eyes were sharp, wolf-gold, but not cruel.

“You’re the girl from the river,” he said. His voice was low, roughened by years of surviving without mercy. “My pups found you.”

“Yes.”

He studied me, not with suspicion, but with something close to understanding. “You’ve seen war,” he said. “I can smell it on you.”

My throat tightened. “It’s over.”

“Is it?” His tone softened. “Wars don’t end when the fighting stops. They end when you stop running from the fire inside you.”

For the first time since that night, I met someone’s gaze without flinching. There was no judgment in his eyes. Just truth — and the quiet promise that I didn’t have to stay broken.

He nodded once. “You can stay here if you pull your weight. Train. Heal. Earn your place.”

“I don’t want charity,” I said. “I want strength.”

A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “Then you’ll fit in just fine.”