Chapter 8 The Reckoning

Abby didn't get a chance to ask any more questions.

Marla turned sharply and began walking toward the far side of the clearing, where the trees grew denser and the shadows deeper. One by one, the others fell in behind her, moving like a silent tide. Abby hesitated for only a second before following, the dirt still clinging to her palms from the fight.

The air shifted as they crossed an invisible threshold, growing colder, heavier. Every instinct Abby had screamed to stay alert. Her muscles ached from the earlier fight, but she pushed the pain down. Pain meant she was alive. Pain meant she was ready.

After a few minutes of tense silence, they arrived at a second clearing, smaller, more secluded - almost like a natural arena. In the center of it was a cage.

Something moved inside it.

Abby's breath caught in her throat.

The creature was massive - larger than any wolf she had ever seen, its fur black as the void, its yellow eyes burning like twin torches in the darkness. It paced restlessly behind the iron bars, its claws scraping against the ground with a sound that made Abby's skin crawl.

Marla faced the group, her hands folded behind her back.

"This," she said calmly, "is a feral."

Gasps rippled through the pack.

Abby tensed. She'd heard whispers about ferals - wolves who had lost themselves to rage, consumed by the primal beast inside until nothing human remained. They were faster, stronger, and utterly merciless.

"This is your true test," Marla continued, her gaze locking onto Abby's. "You will step into the cage. Alone."

The blood drained from Abby's face.

"You don't have to defeat it," Marla said. "You only have to survive."

The feral growled low in its throat, the sound vibrating through the ground beneath Abby's feet. It smelled her fear. It thrived on it.

Abby swallowed hard. Every cell in her body screamed at her to run - but something deeper, fiercer, rose to meet the terror.

She clenched her fists.

"I'm ready," she said, her voice steady.

A murmur of surprise went through the group, but Marla only smiled, as if she'd expected nothing less.

Without another word, Marla moved to the side of the cage and unlocked it. The door swung open with a metallic creak that seemed to echo forever.

The feral snapped its head up.

Abby took one step forward.

Then another.

And then she crossed the threshold, sealing her fate.

The cage door clanged shut behind her.

For a moment, everything stopped - even time.

Then the feral charged.

Abby didn't think. She moved, ducking under the beast's swipe, rolling across the packed dirt. The feral turned fast, too fast, and Abby barely dodged another snapping jaw that could have crushed her ribs.

She needed to survive.

She needed to outlast it.

Not by fighting harder - by fighting smarter.

She circled, keeping her distance, forcing the feral to waste its energy lunging at her again and again. Each time, it missed by inches, its frustration building like a storm.

Abby felt it - the rhythm, the pulse of the hunt. Her body, her instincts, were working as one now. She was no longer the girl who stumbled into this life.

She was becoming something else.

The feral charged again, slower this time, and Abby seized her chance. She darted in close, grabbing a fistful of its thick fur, using its own momentum to spin it sideways. The beast stumbled, unbalanced.

It wasn't down - but it was enough.

Marla's voice rang out over the clearing: "Time!"

The cage door flung open.

Two of the older pack members rushed forward, hooking the feral with silver-tipped poles, dragging it back into the enclosure. It snarled and thrashed, but Abby hardly heard it.

She was too busy staring down at her shaking hands, her heart hammering in her chest.

She had survived.

Slowly, she lifted her gaze.

The pack was watching her. Not with pity. Not with contempt.

With respect.

Marla stepped closer, a rare gleam of approval in her eyes.

"You have the heart of a true Alpha," she said quietly.

The words hit Abby harder than any blow.

And somewhere, deep inside her, something ancient and wild stirred - and smiled.