“I went to speak to Alpha Ares.”Silence hung heavy in the air between us. Though I wanted to fidget, I held my ground. I would not bow before her. I would not lie. I met her gaze with something akin to defiance, my core burning with guilt and squeezing with anger.Her face twisted. “What do you mean?”I took a deep breath. “Alpha Ares is alive. I didn’t kill him. I just… I wanted you to trust me again.”“So you lied,” she said, her voice as flat as her expression. “Again.”I lifted my chin. “Yes. Because you had to listen to me fast, Mum. You didn’t believe that Greyhide were the real threat. I thought that if Ares was out of the picture, you’d see that it wasn’t him–”“You’re still bewitched by him. Stars, Haile,” she groaned, running a hand down the length of her braid. “I thought you were better than this.”“Mum, I–”She grabbed me by the arm. “No. You’ve said enough. You always trusted me before, Haile. You were the perfect Luna’s daughter, and I thought – I always thought that y

I didn’t know how long I had been unconscious for, but I knew three other things: the first was that my head hurt, the second was that dawn-light still painted the sky – had a full day passed, or no time at all? – and the third was that I was slung over someone’s back. Slowly, my memories pieced themselves back together. My puffy, bleary eyes sought of the colour of the fur beneath me. White. I couldn’t see his brown paw, but I knew, deep down, that it was Nazte I sat upon.Next, I turned my attention to my surroundings. I moved as carefully as I could, remaining limp across his back and using the momentum of the slow beats of his run to mask the shifting of my neck and head. As I lifted my head, I quickly understood why I had not fallen from him, even as a dead weight perched precariously upon his back. I was tied to him. I frowned. He wouldn’t have been able to do that himself. He had help. A companion.‘Ares?’ Still unable to pinpoint my exact location, I hoped and prayed and begg

In the darkness, there remained spots – sparkles, glittering sparkles – of light, which shone silver as the stars. I brushed past them, uninterested in their beauty. I had suffered so much. Was this not my right? Was peace not more than I was allowed?And then I heard a voice. Real or hallucinated, I didn’t know. But the voice drew me close, pulled me into strong arms, arms that smelt like snow and woodsmoke and pine, and I could taste wine on his lips, and the voice inside me grew louder.‘Don’t give in, beautiful. Don’t give up.’It was a voice I knew even in death, and I clung to it. It was gravel and honey, sin and sorrow, beauty and pain and good and evil and whimsy and smirks and sardonic and oh, how I loved it.How I loved him.The past and the present separated. Memories untangled, leaving behind the raw, rasping sound of my throat as I screamed for help, as water – cold, icy cold water – rushed over my head, rushed down, down, down into my lungs. But that was the past, and I

Despite my protests, I spent two nights recovering at the cabin. Nana Baspy and Grandpa Attie stayed with me, certain that they would not be missed while the Warrior Wolves prepared to march on the Winterpaw Warrior Pack.I was restless, which my grandparents took as a good sign – as a sign that I was healing, that I was recovering from my most recent ordeal. Of course, they didn’t wake with me when nightmares pulled me from my sleep, or when the gleaming, clear surface of my bathwater suddenly became dark and rippled. I shoved these things down, preferring to focus on what I could do, on the future I could change, if only we hurried up and damn well left this lovely, warm, cosy cabin behind.I’d not heard my grandparents mindlinking me – but I had heard Ares. I still had no idea if that had been my own subconscious trying to wake me, desperate for me to get a grip and swim to the surface, or if, somehow, Ares had found a way to communicate with

Darkness crested the horizon. It swelled within me, too, eclipsing all logical sense and plans when I heard Ares speak, his words drilling straight into my mind and leaving a gaping hole in their wake. He was too damned close. And, because he was too damned close, he was at risk. Every worry – every fear – I’d had while we’d been running bloomed anew, settling in my stomach like lead as I heard his beautiful, damning voice. ‘Haile! Haile, can you hear me? Shit, you’d better be able to hear me, you’d better be safe, damn it, please don't be dead–’ I cut him off. ‘Ares! Why can I hear you? We shouldn’t be close enough to mindlink, not yet–’ ‘I thought you were dead!’ He swore viciously, and I felt his emotions surging through the bond. There was shock and relief, heady and giddy, which made his head spin; that encompassed everything, save for the knot of worry that remained somewhere near the centre of his chest. ‘Why did you think I was dead?’ My own worries were replaced by con