REBORN ALPHA

The Deal in the Dark

"What I promised?" Seraphine's voice stayed calm, but her fingers had gone white around her cloak. "You're not supposed to remember that."

"I remember everything," Rowan said, in my mouth, with my throat, and his gaze never left her. "That's the problem with sleeping. You hear it all."

Sable stared at him. At me. "Rowan?" she breathed. "Is it really you?"

His face softened for half a heartbeat. "Hi, Sab."

Then the trackers lunged.

Rowan moved like water. Where I fought with brute strength, he slipped under claws, twisted out of nets, used the tunnel walls to throw one wolf into another. Not an Alpha's fighting. An omega's. Someone who had spent twenty years learning exactly how not to get hit.

Left, I said, inside our shared skull. Behind you.

I see him. He ducked. The tracker's jaws snapped over his head. You're loud, you know that?

You're slow.

I'm alive, he shot back, and drove an elbow into the wolf's throat.

We dropped four of them in ten seconds. The rest backed away, whining, while Seraphine watched with her hand pressed to her chest like a woman seeing her house burn down.

"Tell him," Rowan said, breathing hard. "Tell Kael what you offered me."

"Rowan." Her voice cracked. "Don't."

"Three years ago. In the Ashfang cellars. I was bleeding on the floor and you knelt down and told me you could make it stop." He turned his head, and I felt him speaking to me. "She said Brutus would never touch my sister again. All I had to do was let a dead Alpha borrow my body."

A deal, I said. You knew it was a trap.

I knew Sable would be safe. That was all I cared about. Rowan's grief rolled through me like a wave. I didn't know what she wanted you for. I only found that out after I died.

"What does she want?" Sable whispered. "Seraphine, what did you want with him?"

Seraphine laughed. Not the cold, elegant laugh from the cave. A cracked, helpless sound.

"I wanted him back," she said. "I told you, Kael. I only wanted you alive."

"You killed me."

"I killed the Alpha. The one who wouldn't listen. The one who would rather die than let anyone help him." She stepped closer, eyes bright and wet. "The ritual brings back the soul but not the stubbornness. A reborn Alpha has no pack, no title, no crown to carry. He would finally be free. I would never have to share you with a throne again."

I stared at her. Fifteen years of friendship. A lifetime of childhood storms and lullabies.

She's insane, I thought.

No, Rowan said quietly. She's lonely. It's worse.

"But the ritual isn't finished," Seraphine went on, and her tone sharpened. "The soul and the body must bond completely. And you, Rowan, ruined that by waking up."

Rowan went still. "What happens if we don't finish?"

"The ritual collapses," she said. "And everything it built goes with it. The body. The soul."

"Both of us," Rowan said.

"Both of you." She tilted her head, and the sorrow in her face was real. "Unless one of you gives up your place. Willingly. By the next full moon."

The tunnel went silent.

Behind her, the trackers had stopped growling. They weren't looking at me. They were looking at something behind us.

Sable turned first. Her breath caught.

At the mouth of the tunnel, backlit by gray dawn, stood Draven. Beside him, shoulders like a boulder, a scarred hand resting on his arm like an old friend, stood Brutus.

My brother. My supposed enemy. The Alpha who had tormented Sable and Rowan for years.

They were smiling together.

"Sorry we're late," Draven said pleasantly. "We were just finishing the preparations."

Brutus held up a small, rusted key.

I didn't recognize it at first. Then I saw the symbol carved into the head, and every drop of blood left my face.

Oh no, Rowan whispered.

It was the key to the Alpha hall's sealed vault. The place where the pack's Moon Stone was kept. The only thing powerful enough to finish the ritual, or break it for good.

"You didn't think Seraphine planned this alone, did you?" Draven said gently. "Brother, you were never the only one with a long game."

He tossed the key to Seraphine. She caught it, and for the first time since we met, she didn't look at me. She looked at him, and what I saw on her face wasn't love. It was dread.

He's using her too, I realized.

"Take them," Draven said.

The trackers rushed in.

And behind my eyes, Rowan whispered the words that made my blood freeze all over again:

Kael. Whatever happens next, don't let them take Sable alive. Not even if it means killing me.