The radio crackled as if the mountains themselves were chewing on the signal.
"...road closures on the eastern... static... moon territories remain off-limits... static... Wolf Accords protest expected... static..."
Nahla Calder huffed and twisted the dial again. Nothing but clipped voices, warnings swallowed by static, and a low humming that crawled under her skin.
Of course the radio would die now.
She had already lost service twice. The sun had dipped behind the jagged spine of the mountain range an hour ago, swallowing the road in amber shadow and cold wind. She was deep into the forested borderlands now, far away from the clean, well-maintained highways of central Valoria, the fictional country she once swore she would never return to.
Yet here she was.
Ten hours of driving behind her.
At least eight more ahead.
All because she was too proud to accept her older sister's help.
Mari had offered to pay for a flight home for the holidays. Any normal person would have accepted, grateful for the gesture. But Nahla could not bear the thought of admitting she could not afford the ticket. Not after years of insisting she was fine.
Fine in the city.
Fine with her job.
Fine living in a studio so small her bed touched the door.
Fine.
Her mother's voice had finally cracked through her stubbornness last week.
"Nahla, it has been two years. Your niece barely knows you. Do you know how that breaks my heart?"
Guilt had washed over her until she caved. Now guilt had her driving through wolf-border territory in the middle of winter, in the dark, on two hours of sleep and three cans of caffeine.
A masterpiece of terrible decisions.
She adjusted the GPS on her phone, propped crookedly against the dashboard. A single bar of signal pulsed weakly in the corner of the screen.
The road ahead narrowed. The trees crowded in close, branches interlocking overhead like bony fingers. No streetlights. No houses. No signs. Only wilderness stretching endlessly.
The kind of wilderness where wolves once ruled.
Where some still did.
A shiver ran down her spine.
Most humans grew up hearing about wolves the way children heard ghost stories. Half-true, half-myth, always terrifying. But wolves were real. They had existed long before Valoria became a country. They had kingdoms and hunting traditions. They were not discovered by humans. Humans had invaded their lands.
And humans repaid that ancient history by treating wolves like monsters.
Centuries of wars. Exploitation. Forced treaties. Wolves pushed into restricted lands known as Sanctuaries, sovereign wolf territories humans could not enter without government approval. Occasionally, documentary crews were allowed inside under heavy escort, but most humans never saw a wolf in person.
Sanctuaries were supposed to be safe havens. Wolves called them cages.
Nahla remembered how her father used to talk about wolves. He would spit on the ground before saying the word. Her uncles still went hunting every Saturday night with silver bullets clinking in their pockets, claiming they were protecting the community.
A familiar sickness tightened her stomach.
She had never belonged in that family. Not truly. She was too soft, too curious, too unwilling to hate an entire people simply because she was told to.
The forest thickened as she drove deeper. Branches grew skeletal and tangled. The sky turned a navy-black sheet. Mountains loomed on either side like sleeping giants carved from stone.
She glanced at the passenger seat, where a half-empty energy drink sweated into the fabric.
"Two more hours," she muttered. "Then a motel. A real shower. Real sleep. I'll call Mari and pretend I didn't drive into the middle of nowhere like an idiot."
Still, she did not regret driving.
Home meant facing her perfect older sister with her perfect suburban house in Ridgehaven.
Her mother, who treated perfection as a religion.
Her extended family, who would ask why she was still single, still working a dead-end job, still not settled.
Her father's cold disappointment.
Going home meant walking back into the version of herself she fought to escape.
She turned up the radio again, hoping for anything. Music. Noise. A distraction.
"Breaking update regarding the Wolves-Human Integration Bill. Debates continue in the capital as human protestors are... static... claiming wolves pose a threat... static... wolf attacks rising near rogue borders... static... stay off mountain roads after dark..."
Her fingers froze on the dial.
"Stay off mountain roads?"
She looked around at the endless stretch of trees and narrow blacktop.
"Well," she muttered, "too late for that."
She forced a laugh that sounded thin and nervous. Reaching behind her seat for the last energy drink, her fingers brushed air. She leaned farther back, taking her eyes off the road for a single moment.
And that single moment destroyed everything.
When she looked forward again, something stood in the center of the road.
Huge.
Dark.
A mountain of fur and muscle.
Her scream ripped through the car.
She slammed the brakes.
Tires screeched.
The world lurched sideways.
Metal crunched.
Glass exploded around her.
The steering wheel slammed into her chest.
Silence followed. A heavy, drowning kind of silence.
Her vision blurred to grey.
When she woke, she was lying on the cold asphalt, several feet from her overturned car. The world spun violently as she tried to breathe.
Pain shot down her leg in a lightning bolt of agony.
She gasped.
Her palms slipped in something warm and slick.
Blood.
Her blood.
"Shit. Okay. Okay..."
Her breath shook as she pushed herself upright. Her headlights flickered weakly, illuminating a twisted mess of metal and shattered glass.
The animal she had hit lay sprawled a short distance away. A dark mass of fur. Too big for a bear. Too long-limbed. But her mind clung desperately to the only explanation it could handle.
"A bear," she whispered.
Her injured leg screamed as she crawled back toward the wreckage in search of her phone.
Glass bit into her skin. The cold air burned her throat. Her hands trembled badly as she tore through broken debris, searching for any glimmer of light.
Nothing.
Everything shattered.
Something shifted behind her.
Nahla froze.
Slowly, painfully, she turned her head.
The animal she had hit was gone.
The forest had gone silent.
No wind.
No insects.
No movement.
Only her heartbeat thundering in her ears.
A low growl rolled through the trees.
Deep.
Predatory.
Wrong.
Not a bear.
Her blood went cold.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no."
The trees parted.
A wolf stepped out.
A wolf the size of her car.
Black fur rippled across its body, thick and wild. Its snout was long and scarred. One eye glowed a sickly yellow. The other was an empty socket, an old wound healed into a nightmare.
Its teeth were jagged, each one sharp enough to tear bone.
A rogue.
Her father had warned her about rogue wolves. Exiles. Rejects. Feral monsters twisted by old magic or human experimentation. Wolves who attacked anything that moved.
This one smelled like rot and blood.
A broken sob escaped her.
The rogue lunged.
Nahla kicked backward, screaming as pain tore through her leg. She dragged herself toward the forest, branches clawing her arms, rocks cutting her knees.
Behind her, the wolf crashed into the car, shaking the ground.
It was toying with her.
Hunting her.
She ran anyway.
Branches slapped her face. Tears blurred her vision. The rogue's growl chased her, cruel and guttural.
Her father's voice echoed in her mind.
"If a wolf ever corners you, go for the heart. Right beside the breastbone."
Useless advice. A pretend solution for a nightmare.
She stumbled over a rock and slammed into the ground. Her head cracked against another stone.
Warm blood spilled down her face.
Her ears rang.
Footsteps thundered behind her.
She rolled onto her back as the rogue descended.
Its teeth closed around her thigh.
She screamed as the world fractured into pain. The wolf shook her violently, bone crunching under its jaws.
She flew through the air and hit a tree with enough force to knock the breath from her.
She could barely see. Barely think.
Barely register the rogue lowering itself again.
Ready to kill.
She choked on a sob.
Then the night shattered.
A blur of brown fur crashed into the rogue, sending both wolves tumbling down the slope. They slammed into trees, claws tearing, teeth snapping, snarls ripping through the forest.
Another wolf.
Bigger.
Stronger.
A force of nature.
They fought viciously, destroying everything around them.
Not to save her.
To claim her.
She was prey.
A meal.
Her vision blurred at the edges.
She should run.
She could not stand.
Her leg poured blood.
Her head roared with pain.
Her father's voice echoed again.
"If a wolf is coming for you, you either kill it or die."
Her hands groped blindly for anything sharp.
A branch.
A rock.
A piece of metal.
Her fingers closed around a jagged tree limb, splintered from the wolves' impact.
She clutched it to her chest.
The forest echoed with a horrible howl and then a crack that silenced everything.
One wolf had fallen.
The other would return for her.