Chapter 9 The Light in the Trees

Nyra's POV

The night was full of silence. Not the peaceful kind, but the sharp and waiting kind, the kind that presses against your skin and encircles tight in your lungs. Every branch that cracks below our boots sounds like a warning. Every blow of wind feels like it is trying to carry a message we can not quite decode.

We move like shadows through the western pass, the trees waving around us like a guard. The storm is holding off for now, the clouds rolling low and angry above our heads, but I can smell the rain in the air. It is coming, and when it does, it will either cover our route or make everything worse.

Draven runs just ahead of me, with his body tense and his senses sharp. Behind us, our strike team of six follows in silence, wolves and warriors I barely know, but move with the efficiency of soldiers used to being more than they were in numbers. I am grateful for the quiet. Every moment wasted on chatter is one we do not have to spare.

I kept scanning the ground, sniffing the wind and I kept listening. There is no sign of a struggle, no scent strong enough to catch yet. Kael's men know how to cover their tracks. They would have used scent masking, wind direction and probably even split paths to confuse us.

But they forgot one thing. They are not hunting alone. We are wolves chasing our cub.

I bent down for a while along the route, my fingers touching and feeling the flattened grass and the faintest impression of a boot. Smaller than what Kael's men would wear. My heart stutters.

"Auren passed through here," I whisper. Draven bent down beside me, his hand just an inch away from mine as he examined the ground. He did not speak, but I felt his breath catch, saw the tight set of his jaw.

He believes me. "We are close," I said, then I stood up.

We move faster now, passing through the narrow valley that stays between ancient stone and thick underbrush. The path is very dangerous, roots thick as wrists, uneven ground, a sheer drop to one side, but none of us slow down.

My muscles burn, but I barely notice. My wolf is at the edge of my skin, fur brushing the inside of my bones, ready to shift. But I held her back. Not yet and not until we are closer.

A distant sound cuts through the air, sharp and urgent. Gareth's team. The distraction is working.

Good. That means Kael's attention is right where we want it, far from here.

We move another mile before the track disappears again. Draven raised a hand, and we froze, breathing hard while listening.

Then I feel it. Not a sound and not a scent, but a pull. Auren.

My breath catches, and I close my eyes, trying to find it again. It is not instinct. It is not logic. It is something deeper. A bond.

My son. He is close. Scared, but fighting. I can feel the pulse of his panic like a drumbeat in my chest.

I open my eyes and turn sharply east. "This way," I say.

We changed our direction off the ravine path and pushed into the denser forest. The trees here are older and thicker, and their roots look like veins across the forest floor. Vines pull at our limbs, branches hold unto our clothes, but nothing stops us.

Then suddenly. Light. It flashes through the trees like lightning, but there is no thunder. Just this sudden and blinding pulse that turns the whole forest white for half a second. Then again. Brighter.

The ground vibrates below our feet, a soft tremble like the earth itself is holding its breath.

I freezed. So does Draven. My heart lodges in my throat. "That is him," I whisper, with my voice sounding harsh. "That is Auren."

Draven looks at me, eyes wide, silver glowing faintly in the dark.

"What the hell was that?" one of the warriors behind us mutters, breathless.

Power, I want to say. My son's power.

Another flash splits the trees, and this time I feel it deep in my bones, a rush of raw and untrained energy, wild and unfocused but strong enough to scorch the sky.

He is not just panicking. He is fighting back.

But if he is using that much energy, then Kael knows what he has now. And that means we are almost out of time.

Draven turns toward me, with his eyes hard. "He is not far. Maybe half a mile."

I nodded once. "Move," I said, slipping into a full sprint, the team falling in behind us.

The forest blurred around me, the wind slicing against my cheeks. My heart was pounding so loudly that I could not hear anything else.

Auren, baby, hold on. We are coming. Another flash. But this time it was brighter and closer.

And then, a scream. Not mine. Not Draven's. But it was Auren's scream.

Small. Broken. I do not think I can run. Through branches, over roots, cutting through underbrush like my skin does not matter. My wolf is sounding in my head, trying to be free.

But I do not need her. Not yet. Because I can feel him. I can feel my son.

And I will burn this entire forest to the ground before I let him get taken again.

We break through the last line of trees, and that is when I see it.

A flash of light that was so bright to turned night into day, pointing from a clearing just ahead. Trees waved, air pulses outward in a wave of invisible force, and I know. That is Auren.

That is my baby. And Kael just made his second big mistake.

He did not count on how dangerous a frightened cub could be.

Especially the ones born of wolves.