The transition from the plush carpets of the pack house to the jagged floor of the North Forest was a slap to the face. Elara's boots, made for walking through gardens and ballrooms, were already soaked through with freezing mud. The trees here weren't like the ones near the village. They were old, gnarled things with branches that reached out like skeletal fingers, clawing at her cloak as she stumbled past.
Every snap of a twig sounded like a bone breaking. Every rustle of leaves was a shadow she thought was Caleb coming to reclaim his property.
The cold was a different kind of beast. It didn't just chill her skin; it seeped into her marrow, turning her blood to slush. Her breath came in ragged, white plumes that hung in the air, a trail of breadcrumbs she couldn't hide. She had to keep moving. If she stopped to rest, the hypothermia would claim her before the wolves did.
By the time the moon reached its peak, she hit the boundary.
This wasn't just a line in the dirt. It was a physical wall of ancient, dense brambles and stone markers carved with warnings in a language so old it felt heavy in the air. This was the Forbidden Village territory. Even Caleb, in all his Alpha arrogance, never brought the hunt here.
The villagers weren't just shifters. They were the Old Blood. Indigenes who stayed isolated, guarding secrets that predated the great packs. To them, a "city wolf" like Elara was a plague. An indigene would see her as a trespasser, and the penalty for crossing that line was rarely a quick death.
Elara looked back. Far in the distance, she saw the flickers of torches. The hounds were baying, but they were headed south, chasing the ghost of her anklet. She had a head start, but she was entering a nightmare to escape a monster.
She stepped over the first stone marker. The air immediately grew thick and humid, smelling of damp earth and something metallic, like old coins. The forest here was silent. No birds. No crickets. Just the sound of her own frantic heart.
The ground turned into a swampy mess, sucking at her boots with every step. Her feet were numb, her toes likely blue, but she pushed forward. She crawled over fallen logs slick with toxic-looking moss and ducked under low-hanging vines that dripped a sticky, grey sap.
She wasn't just a girl on the run anymore. She was a trespasser in a world that didn't want her. And as she looked up, she saw the first of the village sentinels—not a wolf, but a man standing perfectly still in the high branches, watching her with eyes that didn't blink.
He didn't move to help. He just watched her struggle, waiting to see if the forest would kill her so he wouldn't have to.