Connall finished wrapping the gash on his forearm, his movements sharp and economical. The strip of cloth was crude, but it would hold. He rose, his gaze landing on Althea, cold and analytical. The oppressive air in the damp cave was thick with the smell of wet earth, drying blood, and a tension that coiled in his gut like a starved serpent. For hours they had sat in silence, prisoners of their cursed proximity, but the fragile truce of exhaustion was over. Sleep had sharpened the edges of his hatred, not dulled them.
He broke the silence, his voice a low growl that scraped against the stone walls, deliberately harsh. "Bloodfang warriors don't hunt their own Luna for sport. I've seen Volkov's work. It's brutal, but it's not random. Why are you out here?"
Althea flinched at the title, a shadow of pain crossing her features. She pushed a stray lock of silver-streaked hair from her face, her chin lifting with a flicker of defiance. She would not cower before him. "I am no longer their Luna," she said, her voice steady despite the tremor she fought to conceal. "I am a fugitive."
Connall's eyes narrowed. He took a slow, deliberate step closer, a predator assessing potential prey, enjoying the way she tensed. "A fugitive from what? Stealing scraps from the Alpha's table?"
She met his gaze, the silver of her eyes holding a desperate sincerity that he refused to acknowledge. She had to make him understand, make him see that their enemy was the same. "I was formally accused of treason against Alpha Volkov."
Hoping the truth would forge a fragile bridge across the chasm of their bloodlines, she delivered the final, damning detail. "I was framed for conspiring with Silvermoon loyalists."
The revelation landed with the force of a physical blow, but its effect was the opposite of what she'd hoped for. The air didn't just chill; it turned to ice. For a long moment, Connall just stared at her, his expression a mask of disbelief. Then, a harsh, barking laugh ripped from his throat, a sound devoid of all humor. It was the sound of a wound being torn open, of scar tissue ripping apart.
"A convenient lie," he spat, the words dripping with a venom that had been brewing for a decade. He could feel the phantom ache of the bond in his chest sharpen, a physical echo of his rising fury. The idea of a Bloodfang, *any* Bloodfang, even speaking the name of his family's loyalists was the ultimate desecration. It was a poison poured on sacred ground, a whore's perfume spritzed on his mother's grave.
He advanced another step, his presence filling the cramped space, radiating a hate so pure it was almost tangible. "You want me to believe the pack that slaughtered my family, that burned my home to the ground, suddenly found a conscience?" His voice dropped to a feral whisper that was more terrifying than a shout. "The only traitors in that pack are the ones still breathing."
Althea's desperation hardened into defiance. She scrambled to her feet, planting them firmly on the stone floor, refusing to be intimidated. Her own anger began to rise, a defense against his suffocating rage. "It's the truth! Volkov's paranoia is a cancer. He sees shadows in every corner, betrayal in every loyal face. He is consuming the pack from within. I am the proof!"
"You are the proof of nothing!" Connall roared, his carefully controlled grief erupting into raw, untempered fury. "You are the whelp of a usurper, the mate of a murderer! Your pack's loyalty is written in the blood of my mother, my father, my kin!"
The argument escalated, a clash of his raw, unresolved past against her desperate fight for a future. Every time he looked at her, he saw the snarling crest of the Bloodfang pack, smelled the smoke and blood of his nightmares. To her, he was just another beast blinded by a history she had no part in creating, a wall of hate standing between her and survival.
"My loyalty was to my pack, not to a tyrant!" she shot back, her voice ringing with a conviction born of her own betrayal. "I would have died for them. But Volkov demanded I bow to his madness, and I refused."
"You speak of loyalty?" he snarled, jabbing a finger toward her, his whole body trembling with rage. "Your pack knows nothing of the word. They followed him then, and they follow him now. They hunt you not because you are a traitor to them, but because you are a loose end."
"And what are you?" she retorted, her own anger flaring hot and sharp. "A ghost, hiding in the woods, so consumed by hate you can't see an ally if she's bleeding at your feet!"
As she drew breath to deliver another sharp retort, Connall froze mid-snarl. His head snapped up, his entire body going rigid. The rage vanished from his eyes, instantly extinguished and replaced by an absolute, primal focus. His ears twitched, his head cocking slightly. He tasted the air, his nostrils flaring, his pupils dilating into black pools. The sudden shift was jarring, absolute. He had gone from furious man to alert animal in a single heartbeat.
He ignored her completely, his attention fixed on the cave mouth. The scent was not the coarse smell of the previous hunters, a scent of brutish anger and clumsy pursuit. This was different. This was colder, sharper, laced with the metallic tang of purpose-forged steel and the chilling, scentless void of disciplined bloodlust. It was the scent of predators who did not fail, who felt no emotion but the drive to kill.
Althea caught it a moment later, a sickening wave of familiarity that stole the air from her lungs. The color drained from her face. She recognized the cold precision of it, the utter lack of wasted energy. This was not a hunting party sent to chase her down. This was an execution squad. She had smelled it once before, on the wind, the night her most trusted guard was found dead with a single, perfect blade wound to his throat.
Connall's eyes finally locked with hers. His personal anger was gone, burned away by a far deeper and more immediate dread that they now shared. He knew this scent profile. They were the Alpha's personal trackers. Elite. Inescapable. Killers who moved like shadows and left no trail.
His voice was a ghost of a whisper, raw with a new kind of terror that was infinitely worse than the anger it replaced.
"The Hounds," he breathed.
The name, spoken into the sudden, suffocating silence of the cave, confirmed their worst fear. Volkov had unleashed his legendary assassins, and their combined scent had just painted a target on their backs that could not be outrun.