Nora POV
The screaming starts before the sun clears the mountains.
Nora doesn't hear it as sound anymore. It's just the backdrop to everything else—the clash of steel, the wet thud of bodies hitting earth, the roar of wolves shifting mid-battle. She moves through it all like she was born knowing this moment would come.
Her blade finds the gap in the Blackthorne warrior's defense. He's bigger than her, stronger probably, but he's sloppy. She can see it in how his left shoulder drops before his swing. He telegraphs everything. She twists under his guard and drives her shoulder into his ribs. He goes down hard.
No time to think about whether he gets back up.
The Kane pack is dying and she knows it.
That knowledge sits in her gut like a stone, heavy and cold. Blackthorne came at dawn with three times their numbers and the kind of strategy that only comes from someone who's been planning this for months. They knew every defensive position. They hit the weak spots first. Within the first hour, the Kane border completely shattered.
Now it's just cleanup.
Nora pushes toward the center of the fighting where her father's voice still cuts through the chaos. That's where the real soldiers are trying to make a stand. That's where you go when you want to actually slow them down instead of just die alone.
A younger warrior grabs her arm. "We need to pull back. Regroup in the caves."
She recognizes him. Seventeen maybe. Scared out of his mind.
She doesn't have time to explain that there is no regrouping. There are no caves that will save them. Blackthorne doesn't leave witnesses from defeated packs. Instead, she just shakes him off and keeps running.
Her father is where she finds him—surrounded by a circle of warriors, all of them bleeding, all of them fighting like they have something left to prove.
Kane warrior father sees her and something flickers across his face. He's a tall man, scarred across the jaw from a fight years ago, strong enough that even now with blood dripping down his temple he looks like he could hold this line forever.
But his eyes say different.
He says her name. She reads it on his lips more than hears it.
"Stay back," he shouts, but she's already moving toward him, already sliding into the space at his side.
"We can break through the east line," she says, breathing hard. The east line is thinner. She counted the warriors there twice. If they move fast enough, if they hit hard enough, maybe they can—
Her father's blade flashes up. He blocks an attack aimed at her head. The force of the blow drives him down to one knee.
Nora moves without thinking. Her blade comes around and catches the warrior who was about to finish him. She's faster than she's ever been, anger and desperation making her sharp in ways training never managed.
But there are too many.
They come in a wave. One moment she's fighting beside her father and the next he's pushing her away, his voice hard and final. "Go."
She doesn't go.
It's the biggest mistake of her life.
Her father plants himself in front of her like a wall. A warrior comes at him low. Her father sidesteps but another one comes at him from the side and he's already committed, already moving the wrong direction. She sees it happening before it happens. Sees the gap opening. Sees the moment everything changes.
She screams his name.
His eyes find her for just a second. Not afraid. Just sad, like he's been waiting for this his entire life and he's relieved it's finally here.
Then the blade goes through him.
Nora moves before her mind catches up to what she just watched. She moves like she's made of teeth and rage. Like she's not really Nora anymore but something meaner. Something that exists only to tear things apart.
She fights like someone who has nothing left to lose because she doesn't. Her blade is bright with blood. Her muscles burn. Sounds come out of her that don't sound human.
And it doesn't matter at all.
Because there are too many and she's just one girl and Blackthorne didn't come here to show mercy.
A shadow moves across the sun.
Nora doesn't see him coming. She's too focused on the warrior directly in front of her, too blinded by rage to notice anything else. It's only when the hand closes around her throat that she understands what's happening.
The grip is gentle actually. Not the violent grab of a soldier trying to kill her. This is controlled. Precise. A man who doesn't need to waste energy on rage because he's completely sure of what he's doing.
She tries to scream. Nothing comes out.
His voice arrives before his face does, low and smooth like water over stones. "Stop fighting."
She doesn't. She can't. She throws her elbow backward, twists, scratches. For a second she thinks it's working. Her nails find something soft and she hears him hiss.
Then his other hand comes around her wrist and everything goes dark.
The last thing she sees before the darkness takes her is a pair of eyes so silver they look like moonlight on water. Eyes that belong to someone impossibly beautiful and impossibly cruel. Eyes that are studying her like she's interesting. Like she's worth keeping.
Then the darkness swallows everything.