Lyra's POV
Keal hadn't moved since he'd spoken those last words. His eyes stayed fixed on the fire, its glow painting sharp edges across his face. The kind of edges you could cut yourself on if you got too close. His jaw was clenched so tightly I could almost hear the grind of his teeth.
I didn't speak. Not because I didn't have anything to say, but because everything inside me was tangled into knots I didn't dare pull at.
The earth still hummed faintly from what I'd done. From what had come out of me. That… shockwave. That impossible, blinding surge that hadn't felt like mine at all and yet had come from my own skin, my own blood.
It should've scared me. Maybe it did. But what scared me more was the way Keal had looked at me in that moment not with fear, but with something worse. Recognition.
As if he'd known all along that it would happen.
The fire spat and cracked, and he finally moved, just enough to throw another log on. Sparks swirled up into the blackness above us.
"They'll move fast now," he said, voice low.
"Your pack?"
He nodded once. "They'll call more. Not just scouts. They'll bring the warbands."
The warbands. I'd heard of them in whispers, in old, broken campfire stories told by people who didn't make it to the end of them. The Moonbound didn't send the warbands for justice. They sent them for extinction.
"And they'll come for you," I said.
"For us."
I wanted to argue, to remind him that I'd survived worse, that I wasn't some helpless thing to be tucked away in a cave while he bled for me. But the words wouldn't come. Because part of me knew he was right.
Silence stretched again, taut as a snare wire. I could feel it pressing against my chest, making each breath sharp. My hands wouldn't stop trembling, and I hated that he could see it.
I pulled my knees to my chest, curling in on myself. The cave felt too small, the air too still, and somewhere far off, beyond the stone and shadow, a wolf howled.
Keal's head snapped toward the sound.
"That's close," I whispered.
He rose without a word, moving toward the mouth of the cave. Moonlight bled in from the outside, pale and cold, painting silver along his shoulders. I followed him, quiet as I could, my bare feet numb against the rock.
The night was a sheet of frost, the forest below drowned in mist. No movement. No sound but the wind winding through the cliffs.
"Keal…"
"I smell them," he murmured. "They've split into two groups. One tracking us directly. The other circling ahead to cut us off."
"How far?"
He hesitated. "Hours. Maybe less."
My pulse hammered. "Then we can't stay here."
He turned to me, and for the first time since we'd fled, there was no anger in his face, no shield of control. Just raw calculation. And something else.
"You used power tonight," he said. "Enough to wake things older than my pack's laws. Things that sleep in the deep places of the earth."
"I didn't mean to."
"That doesn't matter. They felt it. And they'll come too."
"They?"
He didn't answer. Which meant I already knew.
Not wolves. Not humans. Something in between. The kind of thing the elders only spoke of when they wanted to scare pups into obedience.
"What happens if they reach us first?" I asked.
Keal's gaze swept over the dark horizon. "Then we stop running."
A shiver went through me that had nothing to do with the cold.
He stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the heat of him against the frozen air. "If I tell you to run, you run," he said.
"I won't leave you"
"You will," he cut in, his voice like iron. "Because if you don't, they'll take you alive. And I won't let that happen."
The way he said it made my skin prickle. Not because of the threat, but because I believed him. Keal would kill me himself before letting them touch me.
And somehow, that felt like the safest and most terrifying thing in the world.
The howl came again. Closer this time. And woven into it was another sound low, guttural, almost human.
Keal's head tilted slightly. His eyes changed.
"They're here."
I stood frozen, my heart pounding so hard it felt like the sound alone would give us away. The cold bit deep into my bare arms, but it was nothing compared to the chill crawling up my spine.
The howl echoed again. Closer. Louder. And under it, I heard the scrape of claws on stone.
I took a step back, my fingers brushing the damp cave wall. The darkness behind me suddenly felt deeper, as if it were holding its breath.
"Keal?" I whispered into the mist.
No answer.
I hated the way fear made me small, made me want to curl in on myself. But I forced my legs to move. One step. Another. Until I reached the cave mouth, peering out into the night.
And then I saw him.
A blur of shadow and silver, Keal burst from the fog, tackling something I could barely register a shape too tall for a wolf, too wrong for a man. It snarled, a sound that seemed to scrape at the inside of my skull.
The two figures slammed into the ground, stone cracking beneath them. Keal's claws tore through flesh, but the thing didn't bleed right. Its blood was black, thick, and steaming against the cold.
I couldn't breathe. My mind screamed at me to hide, but my body wouldn't obey. I was rooted, watching them tear into each other.
Then more shapes emerged from the fog.
Not wolves. Not exactly. Their spines curved too sharply, their jaws split wider than any natural mouth should, and their eyes glowed faintly red, like embers trapped in ice.
Four of them. Moving slow. Surrounding the cave. Surrounding me.
Keal saw them too, but he didn't call my name. He just roared a sound that shook the mist itself and tore the first creature's head clean from its body.
"Inside!" he barked.
I ran. But I didn't make it far. One of the things was already there, blocking the cave entrance. Its gaze locked on mine, and I felt it like a weight in my chest, a command that didn't use words.
It wanted me still. Obedient. Waiting.
My knees buckled. My vision swam.
No.
Not again.
I dragged air into my lungs, forcing my body to move. The weight pressing on me cracked, just slightly, and I threw myself to the side as claws slashed where my head had been.
The creature shrieked, and it was the kind of sound that made the earth want to close over itself and hide. I scrambled backward, my palms skidding over wet rock.
Keal was there in the next heartbeat, slamming into it so hard the impact echoed. The two of them went down in a blur of teeth and black blood.
But the others were still coming.
The mist was thicker now, clinging to my skin like cold fingers. Shapes moved inside it tall, lean, wrong shapes. I could hear their breaths. Hear the click of their claws against stone.
Keal shoved the dead creature aside and caught my arm. "We can't stay here," he growled.
"Where"
"Down."
Before I could ask what he meant, he dragged me toward the back of the cave, past the shadows and damp stone, to where the ground simply… stopped.
I stared at the drop. "You're not serious."
"They'll corner us if we stay."
I looked over the edge. Nothing but blackness, the sound of water rushing somewhere far, far below. "That's not escaping. That's suicide."
"Do you trust me?"
The truth was… I didn't know. Not completely. But I nodded anyway.
His hand tightened on mine. "Then jump when I tell you."
The howls came again, closer now, so close I could feel the vibrations in my bones. A shadow peeled itself from the mist one taller than the rest, its eyes burning brighter, its smile too wide for its face.
It stepped into the cave like it already owned it.
Keal shoved me behind him, his stance low, his claws bared. "That one's the alpha," he murmured.
The creature tilted its head, its voice a low hiss. "Moonbound," it said, the word almost a mockery. "You've been keeping something that doesn't belong to you."
Keal snarled. "She's not yours."
"Oh, but she is," the alpha said, its eyes sliding to me. "She's ours by birthright. By prophecy."
Something inside me twisted, sharp and cold. My breath came fast. I wanted to speak, to scream, but the thing's gaze held me, freezing me in place.
Keal's voice cut through it like a blade. "Lyra. Now."
He lunged at the alpha.
And I jumped.
The air tore past me, cold and wet, and the roar of water rose up to meet me. My stomach flipped, my scream swallowed by the dark.
I didn't know if Keal had followed.
I didn't know if I'd hit water or stone.
All I knew was that the mist closed over me like a shroud and then something in the depths caught me before I could fall any further.
Something that wasn't Keal.