The SUV stank of burnt rubber and old blood. Every rut in the logging road slammed Elias against my thighs, and each time his breath hitched I felt it in my own chest like a blade twisting. I kept one palm pressed to the hollow beneath his jaw, counting the sluggish beats. Too slow. The herbs I'd crushed into his wounds had slowed the silver poisoning, but they hadn't stopped it. Nothing short of witch-blood would.
Ryan hadn't spoken in four hours. His knuckles were white on the wheel, blisters cracking open and resealing as he healed and re-injured himself gripping too hard. The engine screamed. Pines clawed at the windows like they wanted in.
Dusk bled violet across the windshield when he finally jerked the wheel and took us off the track entirely. Branches whipped the roof. Somewhere far below, a river roared over stones. The headlights caught a sagging sign half-swallowed by kudzu: LAST CHANCE MOTEL – VACANCY (always vacancy).
He killed the engine. Silence rushed in, thick as tar.
"Stay with him," he said, voice scraped raw. "Lock the doors. Shoot anything that tries to open them."
I wanted to argue, but the look he gave me was pure Alpha—unyielding, ancient, the same look that had once made entire packs kneel. He was gone before I could form the words.
The motel squatted at the edge of a gravel lot, neon B buzzing and flickering like a dying insect. Human truckers stayed on the interstates; only things that didn't belong anywhere else came here. I watched Ryan's silhouette disappear through a door marked OFFICE in peeling red.
Minutes crawled. Elias's pulse fluttered against my fingers. I leaned over the seat and pressed my lips to his ear. "Hold on, Father. Just one more night."
The driver door ripped open. Ryan slid back in smelling of cigarette ash, cheap whiskey, and something metallic I didn't want to name. His pupils were blown wide.
"Silas is in the bar," he said. "We're going inside."
I started to protest—he knew I couldn't leave Elias—but he was already out again, rounding to my side. He lifted the King as gently as he could, settling him across the back seat with the emergency blanket tucked under his head. Then he held out his hand to me.
"I need you where I can see you."
The bar was worse than the motel. One bare bulb swung overhead, painting everything jaundice yellow. The air tasted of stale beer and wet dog. Two vampires in the corner looked up when we entered, nostrils flaring at the scent of King's blood, but Ryan's growl rolled out low and lethal and they dropped their gazes fast.
Silas waited in the last booth.
He hadn't aged a day since I was sixteen and Ryan dragged me out of his claws the first time. Same slicked-back hair going silver at the temples, same shark smile. The scar across his throat—Ryan's mark—had turned white against olive skin.
"Little King-killer," Silas greeted, voice syrupy. "And the princess herself. My, how far we've fallen."
Ryan slid in opposite him. I stayed standing, hand resting on the knife at my hip.
"Talk," Ryan said.
Silas lifted a glass of something dark and viscous. "Still no manners. Fine. Yes, there's a coven in the Ironfangs. Old blood. Older than your furry little monarchy. They call themselves the Hollow Daughters. They hate wolves on principle and Alphas on religious grounds." He smiled wider. "They'll peel the skin from your bones for fun and wear it as cloaks."
"Location," Ryan said.
"Everything has a price, puppy."
"Name it."
Silas leaned forward, elbows on the scarred table. His gaze slid to me, lingered too long on the blood crusted under my nails, then flicked back to Ryan.
"Not money. I want the Tear of Lunas."
My breath stopped. The Tear was a moon-blessed opal the size of a child's fist, passed down through Ryan's line for nine generations. It was the only thing capable of breaking a true blood oath. Kings had killed for less.
Ryan didn't hesitate. "Done."
I grabbed his wrist. "Ryan—"
He shook me off without looking. "I said done."
Silas's laugh was soft. "So eager. I like that." He reached inside his coat and withdrew a folded square of yellowed paper. "The Hollow Daughters keep to the Black Hollow Temple. Entrance is a cave mouth behind the third waterfall on the north face. You'll smell the magic long before you see it—tastes like rust and lilac. They don't open the wards for anyone. You'll have to bleed. A lot. Royal blood sings sweetest, little princess."
He slid the paper across the table. Ryan took it with steady fingers.
"One more thing," Silas purred. "When you're ready to pay up, you come alone. No mate, no dying king. Just you and me and that pretty stone. If you bring company, the deal's off and I sell your route to Valen for twice what he's already offering."
Ryan stood. The booth creaked as he leaned in until his shadow swallowed Silas whole.
"You'll get your stone," he said quietly. "But if you ever look at her again the way you just did, I'll wear your spine as a belt."
Silas's smile never wavered, but something flickered behind his eyes. Fear, maybe. Good.
We were back in the SUV before I found my voice.
"You can't give him the Tear."
Ryan started the engine. "I just did."
"That stone is the only thing keeping your pack from tearing itself apart when we take the throne back. Without it—"
"There won't be a throne if Leo dies." He pulled onto the cracked asphalt, headlights cutting twin tunnels through the night. "There won't be a pack. There won't be anything."
The finality in his voice cracked something open inside me. I stared at his profile—jaw clenched, burns still livid across his cheek and throat—and realized what he'd truly bargained away.
His soul. Not in pretty words or metaphors. Silas collected favors the way some men collected knives, and the Tear of Lunas was the sharpest blade of all. One day that debt would come due, and Ryan would pay it alone.
Guilt burned hotter than rage. I reached across the console and threaded my fingers through his. He let me. His hand was furnace-hot, trembling faintly.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"Don't be." He squeezed once, hard enough my bones sang. "He's our son."
The road climbed. Pines gave way to jagged rock. Somewhere above us, waterfalls thundered down cliffs black as obsidian. The air grew thin and sharp, tasting of snow that hadn't fallen yet.
Hours later Ryan cut the engine at the tree line. The dashboard clock read 3:17 a.m. He killed the lights. In the sudden dark I could hear Elias breathing behind us—shallow, but steady.
Ryan turned to me. Moonlight carved silver hollows under his eyes.
"The climb takes four hours on a good day," he said. "There's no path. The wards start halfway up. They'll try to turn us back—illusions, pain, memories you don't want to live again."
I nodded.
He reached into the glove box and pulled out a strip of red cloth. Without asking, he tied it around my upper arm, high and tight, then tied a matching one around his own.
"Blood calls to blood," he said. "If we get separated, follow the cloth. Don't trust your eyes."
I looked at the steep wall of stone disappearing into cloud. Somewhere up there, behind water and spell and centuries of hatred, my son was waiting.
I drew a shaking breath, tasting iron and ice.
"Then let's go bleed."
Ryan shouldered the pack with the last of our water and the herbs for Elias. I carried the King against my chest, his weight nothing now, a promise I refused to break.
We stepped out of the SUV and into the mouth of the mountain, two wolves walking willingly into the one place on earth that wanted us dead.
The darkness swallowed us whole.