Sophie's POV
Sophie barely slept.
She lay in her small room in the compound with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling, replaying Carson's smile over and over. The hunger in his voice when he said she still had uses. The way the pack had looked at her like she'd suddenly become something worth noticing.
Worth consuming.
She dozed around 4 AM and woke at 6:30 to a knock on her door. Not a knock really. More like a summons. One of Carson's guards stood in her doorway looking annoyed.
"Alpha wants you," he said.
Those five words made her stomach drop.
Sophie followed him through the compound corridors. Her feet felt like they weren't connected to her body. She was floating and falling at the same time. She tried to think of what she'd done wrong. Had she made eye contact too long last night? Had she stood in the wrong spot? Had she breathed too loud?
By the time they reached Carson's office she was shaking.
The room was all dark wood and windows that didn't actually see anything because they were underground. A dead room. A room where nothing that happened inside could escape. Carson sat behind his desk looking exactly like he looked every morning except his eyes were different. They had the same hunger from last night.
"Close the door," he told the guard.
Sophie was alone with him.
"Do you know why you're here?" Carson asked. He wasn't angry. That was worse than anger. Anger she understood. This was something else.
"No sir," Sophie whispered.
"There's a raid tonight. Across the Northern Ridge border." He stood and walked around his desk. Slow steps. Deliberate. "The Northern Ridge Alpha is weak. His territory is slipping. It's time we reminded everyone who the real power is in these mountains."
Sophie said nothing because nothing was safe to say.
"You'll be in the secondary unit," Carson continued. "Far from the actual fighting. You're not strong enough for the front lines obviously. But I need you there. I need all my resources tonight. Every single one."
He stopped in front of her and looked down. He was so tall. So much larger than life. When he looked at you like this it was impossible to remember that you were human. You just became prey.
"You'll shift at dusk," he said. "You'll run with the secondary unit. You'll stay alert. And you'll come back. Do you understand?"
"Yes sir," Sophie said.
"Good." He turned away, dismissing her. "Don't be late."
She left before he could change his mind about keeping her.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of dread. Sophie tried to eat lunch but couldn't. She tried to distract herself but her mind kept jumping to the same place. Tonight. Fighting. Death.
At 5 PM the fighters began gathering.
The main courtyard filled with wolves. Not in wolf form yet, but the energy was already shifting. Men and women with that feral look in their eyes. That hunger. The Blackstone Pack was built on violence and the pack members loved it. They loved the rush of it. The righteousness. The permission to hurt.
Sophie changed into the clothes she could shift in. Loose pants. No shirt. Nothing that would get caught when her bones changed shape. Her human body felt fragile. Wrong. Like it shouldn't exist in a world of wolves.
The secondary unit was gathered near the eastern exit. About fifty fighters. Stronger than Sophie but not the absolute elite. Not like Carson's personal guard. These were the backup plan. The wolves who would handle any secondary threats.
Sophie was the weakest one there and everyone knew it.
"Look who the Alpha threw in with us," a male named Kess said. He was grinning like he'd seen something funny.
"Maybe we should take bets," another fighter laughed. "How long before the little girl gets torn apart?"
"I'm guessing thirty seconds once the fighting starts," Kess said. "Maybe a minute if she hides real good."
They were laughing. Actually laughing at the thought of her dying.
Sophie kept her eyes down and said nothing. Drawing attention meant worse things than mockery.
At 5:47 PM Carson emerged from the compound. He'd already shifted. He was massive in his wolf form. Silver and black and absolutely deadly. Behind him came his personal guard. The strongest fighters in the pack. The ones who lived for moments like this.
Then came the rest.
Hundreds of wolves poured out of the compound. The sound of them was like nothing Sophie had ever heard. Like the earth itself was angry. Like the mountain was about to split open and swallow everything.
Carson threw his head back and howled.
The pack answered with one voice. One terrible, beautiful sound that echoed through the mountains and meant nothing good for anyone on the other side of the border.
Sophie felt her body start to shift. It hurt. Shifting always hurt but her fear made it worse. Her bones ached as they rearranged. Her skin burned as fur pushed through. Her senses exploded into something sharper and wilder than anything she could control.
When the shift finished she was no longer Sophie the barista. She was a small gray wolf. Too small. Too weak. Everything the pack had taught her she was.
Kess was a massive brown wolf. He looked down at her shifted form and huffed out what might have been a laugh.
The secondary unit moved toward the forest. Not running yet. Walking. Conserving energy. But the closer they got to the border the faster the pace became. The smell changed. The air felt different. Electric. Dangerous.
Sophie could smell them now. The Northern Ridge Pack. Their territory. Their wolves. They knew the Blackstone Pack was coming. She could feel their readiness in the wind.
The moonlight filtered through the trees as they ran deeper into the contested zone. The Divide, the fighters called it. The place where territory got murky and violence happened.
Carson's howl erupted ahead of the secondary unit. The signal. The beginning.
And then everything exploded.
A howl tore through the forest. Not Carson's. Something bigger. Something that came from the other side of the border. Something that answered the challenge like an avalanche answers a shout in the mountains.
The Northern Ridge Pack attacked.
Wolves crashed through the trees like waves. Like an actual force of nature. The collision between the packs happened in seconds and suddenly the whole world was screaming.
Fighting. Death. Blood and fur and the sounds of wolves tearing into each other.
Sophie's unit scattered. Some ran toward the fighting. Some tried to circle around. The battle was already massive and growing larger. She could see wolves going down. She could smell death thick in the air.
A massive dark wolf lunged at Kess and they collided into a tree. Kess was strong but the Northern Ridge wolf was stronger. More experienced. She watched Kess's blood spray across the snow.
She had to move. Had to survive this.
Sophie ran but not toward the fighting. She ran toward the trees. Toward the deep forest. Toward anywhere that wasn't here. Her wolf body was faster than her human one but she was still the weakest thing in this forest tonight.
Behind her the sounds of battle followed. Wolves screaming. Pack mates dying. The whole world coming apart at the seams.
She didn't know where she was going. Just away. Always away.
The forest got darker. Denser. The sounds of fighting faded but didn't disappear. They just got further away. Which meant she was running the wrong direction. She was running deeper into enemy territory instead of toward safety.
Her paws hit root and she stumbled. Caught herself. Kept running.
She could smell the Northern Ridge Pack stronger now. Not the general scent of their territory. The specific scent of individual wolves. Close wolves. Hunting wolves.
Sophie's breath came fast and sharp. Her lungs burned. She was running so hard her legs were starting to fail but stopping meant getting caught. Stopping meant death.
The forest opened slightly. A small clearing surrounded by dense thicket. She dove into the thickest part and held perfectly still.
Her whole body was shaking. Her breath was coming too loud. Every single instinct was screaming that she was going to die here.
Outside the thicket the forest stayed quiet for exactly thirty seconds.
Then she heard paws on the forest floor.
Something massive was moving through the trees. Something that was tracking her by scent. Something that was close enough that she could feel it like a physical presence in her bones.
The paws got closer.
Sophie realized she was trapped. No escape routes. No way to fight. No way to win.
She squeezed her eyes shut and waited.
That's when the sound exploded through everything.
A howl. Loud enough to shake the clearing. Loud enough to split the sky. It came from somewhere deeper in the forest and it had authority in it. Command. Raw power that made even the Northern Ridge wolf hunting her go still.
The paws that had been coming toward her changed direction.
And suddenly the whole forest erupted into chaos as the two alpha forces finally met.