Page 9 of A Sunwoven Ascent

His stomach twisted. She thought this distance was her fault. She thought he no longer wanted her. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

He fought for his voice, clawing toward it, forcing himself against the darkness festering inside him. But it was stronger. It closed around his throat and dragged him back into that black, bottomless silence. No. He had to get to her, had to—

A low stir moved through the camp. Even the demon seemed to still.

The wolves fell silent, and Heidara’s head whipped toward her alpha. Kaldrek and Obren were already in motion, their bodies twisting and tearing into the fearsome shapes of their wolf forms.

Something was coming.

Alaric went rigid as tension cut through the air like a drawn blade. Then chaos broke out. In seconds the camp dissolved into mayhem, shapes blurring as wolves lunged to defend from every direction. Cracks and snaps echoed through the clearing as bodies shifted—Heidara among them. She was breathtaking in her wolf form, all shades of gray and pale gold, her eyes burning red with readiness. She lowered into a crouch, her muscles coiled to spring. Then she turned toward him, as if urging him to stay behind her. He found himself doing exactly that—or rather, his body did.

Growls rippled around him. At the front of the formation stood Evelyne, Kaldrek, Holden, and Obren, teeth bared in their towering wolf forms, terrifying and yet strangely beautiful. Even so, Alaric still could not see what had set them off.

Then a large pack of wolves rose over the horizon, and fear clawed at his ribs. He had never seen them before. Before he could make sense of their shapes, Heidara and the others sprang forward, only to stop so suddenly they slid to a jarring halt. What in hell was going on?

Heidara had gone only a few feet before she shifted back, the others doing the same, all of them left bare-skinned beneath the open sky. Alaric jerked his gaze away as she snatched up her discarded clothes and stomped back toward him, irritation pouring from her as she hissed, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He looked again to the strangers, his pulse easing only slightly when a male and female at the head of the pack shifted into human form. The male was broad and well into middle age, carrying himself with the easy authority of someone long accustomed to obedience. But it was the female beside him who drew the eye. She walked a step ahead, slim and strong, her hair black as midnight. She was older, but there was nothing diminished about her. If anything, she seemed to command the very space between them.

And behind them loomed their pack. A living wall of wolves, guarding their leaders.

“The Moonshade pack,” Evelyne said softly, and Alaric realized only then that she had come up beside them.

“Yes,” Heidara replied, the word clipped.

Evelyne tipped her head, her tone caught somewhere between teasing and caution. “And is there some long-standing hatred here as well, like with Glaciermaw? Or may I breathe easy this time?”

Heidara let out a quiet sigh. “No. I actually like most of them.”

Evelyne’s brow lifted. “Most?”

“Our pack has no quarrel with Moonshade.” Her gaze lowered, and when she spoke again, her voice dropped with it. “I am the one who carries the quarrel.”

Evelyne looked as though she might ask more, but Heidara turned instead to Alaric. His body still would not obey him, but he watched as she caught her lower lip between her teeth before speaking.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you. But I wish you would just say it. Say something.”

Then she turned and walked away, and something inside Alaric gave way, hollow and aching.

Chapter 6

The Moonshade pack, Kaldrek warned her, his voice calm and steady enough to ease the tension in her chest. Somewhere deep in her bones, Evelyne knew these wolves were not enemies. Even so, she pressed lightly against the bond, reaching for more as he spoke with the two who led them. His answer came as a velvet-soft brush across her mind.

Patience, love. No threat here.

The endearment caught her at once, quieting her need to press further. He might still be angry, but he loved her, and for now, that was enough. So she watched and admired her beautiful mate doing what he did best: leading and protecting those he loved.

As darkness deepened over the camp, Evelyne gave up on trying to draw Alaric into conversation. She left him to his tent, since that seemed to be what he wanted, and she no longer had the strength to pick apart his distance yet again. Though her wolf-sight sharpened with the falling night, the shadows still unsettled her. Too many memories of bloodroot demons stalking the tunnels crept unwelcome through her mind. Wanting firmer ground than her thoughts could offer, she turned instead toward Nathan and Reyna.

Ty’s loss still marked them both, written plainly in the hollows of their faces. Evelyne visited when she could, not out of duty, but because she wanted to. Ty had been good, and Nathan, even beneath his grief, remained much the same: kind, steady, accepting. Reyna was another matter. She had lost her mate, and silence had settled over her like a second skin. When she spoke, it was never to Cillian. Evelyne understood why. Forgiveness was not the sort of thing that came gently after a wound like that.

Cillian had tried to apologize once, the words so raw they had nearly undone him, and he had kept his distance ever since. He was prone to solitude anyway, though Evelyne still made a point of sitting with him at dawn and again each evening. Tonight, however, she approached Nathan and Reyna, who sat beneath one of the heavy wooden poles bracing the camp. Reyna rested cross-legged between Nathan’s outstretched legs, her fiery red hair spilling against his broad leather-clad chest. The air here was gentler than it had been in the mountains, though a cool breeze still moved through camp. Nathan’s arms draped loosely over hers, his fingers tracing idle circles along her skin as he watched the wolves keeping guard around their alphas.

“Pardon me,” Evelyne said before she could stop herself. Old habits. The polished phrase slipped free before she remembered she was speaking to wolves, not court nobility.

Nathan smirked faintly but spared her the teasing. “Hello, Evelyne.”

Reyna turned her head just enough to glance at her, then shifted back without a word.