Aurelia scrubbed her face with her sleeve. “North,” she whispered. “I…I heard Fenred tell one of the others. North ridge. He said something about an old mine.”
Julian cursed. “The cave systems.”
“Then we need to move,” Dom said, already standing, “I’ll coordinate the Volkhov trackers. Julian can scent-map the trail.”
Leonid stretched his neck with a quiet crack, “My wolves will join. A favor owed, wolf.” His smile was bright and terrible. “You will pay it later.”
Arthur didn’t care. He’d bargain with devils if it meant Dani breathed another hour.
Chase moved closer, steady and sure, resting a hand on Aurelia’s back. “We’re getting your mom,” he told her softly. “You hear me? Every pack in this valley is going to tear apart the mountains until we find her.”
Aurelia nodded, swallowing hard.
Arthur rose slowly, lifting her with him. She wrapped her legs around his waist without being asked. She suddenly seemed so much younger. She was only ten. She’d always seemed so much larger than that.
He looked at the gathered alphas.
“Every tracker, every scout,” he said. “We move now. No delays. If Fenred is a hybrid, he’s been inside my house. My pack. He knows our patrols, our blind spots. We treat this as war.”
Dom nodded sharply. Rory murmured agreement. Even Leonid’s expression turned serious.
Lavinia stepped forward, voice shaking but steady. “If Dani is alive, she’ll fight. Hard. But they’ll expect that. They may try to use her magic. Or break her to get to the rest of us.”
Arthur’s blood turned to ice.
He adjusted Aurelia in his arms and met every alpha’s gaze in turn.
“Then we don’t give them the chance,” he said. “We track them, then we strike. We take our people back.”
Aurelia buried her face against his collarbone. He pressed a hand to her back, wishing he could give her more than words.
He’d never comforted a child before last week. Never expected to. But she clung to him like he was something solid in a world that had just cracked, and he would burn through stone before he let her fall.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her curls, “I should have been here.”
“Just find her,” Aurelia whispered back, voice shaking like glass. “Please.”
He closed his eyes.
“I will,” he vowed. “I swear it. On my pack. On my life. I will.”
When he looked at the others again, something in him had locked into place, cold, sharp, unyielding.
“Let’s move,” he said.
And the packs obeyed.
Wolves spilled out into the snow. Vampires leaped into the trees. The Severney shifted into pale shapes that vanished like ghosts into the dark. Even the Volnoye bent their heads to the wind, following the faintest hint north.
Arthur stood for one last second in the wrecked doorway of his compound, Aurelia held tight against him, listening to the echo of the bond, faint, distant, like a candle burning somewhere deep underground.
Hold on,he told her silently.I’m coming.
Then he passed Aurelia carefully to Chase, kissed the top of her head, and let his wolf rise.
A howl split the air.
A war cry.
