They ran.
Far from a wolf - Sage had yet to try changing shape, while Kieran stuck to two legs without saying why. Just Rhett made the change, his transformation freezing Sage mid-step.
Hundreds of wolf shifts she had watched. Countless times she had changed too. Yet something about Rhett's change stood apart.
It slipped through him without resistance. Most would tense, clench teeth, hold back - not him. Instead came an unfastening, sudden like a gate giving way in wind. In one heartbeat still human: tall, marked by old wounds, saying nothing. Then fur, fangs, muscle, the same silence now prowling on four legs instead of two.
Huge. The biggest wolf Sage had laid eyes on, without question. That fur - thick, shadowed brown, close to wet soil, near polished oak, almost like the woods breathing slowly. Still those eyes: fixed, warm black-brown, locking onto hers, sharp knowing pulsing underneath.
This wasn't driven by raw impulse. It moved through the world as one being - part man, part wild - yet neither piece could be pulled apart.
A sharp pull inside made Sage's wolf reach for him, ache thick in its movements.
Remarkable, Sage remarked without emotion.
Kieran let out a noise - maybe it was meant to be laughter. He's just trying to impress everyone
A low huff came from Rhett's wolf as its eyes locked on Kieran - clearly not buying what he was selling. Off it moved, ahead of everyone else, muzzle brushing the dirt like a compass set by instinct. Northward it went, pulling the rest along without so much as a glance back.
Fast on their feet. Surprised herself - Sage hadn't thought the wolfsbane cleanse and those quiet days would do so much. Hurts lingered, true, yet something deep inside pushed power through her limbs, mending cracks like glue made of heat. Fuel burned where none should exist. Someone without fur beneath skin would've stayed flat, trapped under sheets for ages. But bones with fangs mend faster.
Beside her moved Kieran. Not quite level - just a step back, leftward - a place wolves once used to show respect. She wondered if he realized it meant something like that. His every motion gave off the sense of being planned ahead.
Low came her words, soft like breath on glass. What did Ashford mean, really. She wasn't scared of ears in trees - just that the name cracked open something delicate. Heavy. Like saying it too loud might break what little remained.
"It should."
"Explain."
Footsteps passed before Kieran spoke. You could almost catch the gears turning - choices stacking behind his eyes about when to speak, what to leave out, which pieces fit where. Here stood someone who held words back like bullets saved for later. Each one fired only if it had to be.
"Your mother," he said finally. "What was her maiden name?"
Sage frowned. "Cross. Elena Cross."
"That was the name she used. It wasn't the name she was born with."
Footsteps cracked the frozen earth. Through the woods ahead, Rhett's wolf slipped between trunks - low, steady, barely seen.
"My mother grew up in a small pack near the coast," Sage said. "She met my father at a gathering. They mated. They had me. The pack dissolved after they died. That's the story."
"That'sastory. It's the one you were told. It's not the truth."
Sage stopped walking.
Footsteps fading, Kieran stood still. Facing her now, his face gave nothing away, those light-colored eyes catching the dim glow of the woods.
"Your mother's birth name was Elena Ashford," Kieran said. "She was my father's sister."
Wind knocked out of her chest, that's how it felt when the words reached Sage.
"She was the youngest daughter of the Ashford bloodline - one of the oldest and most powerful Alpha families in the Western Hemisphere. She left the family at twenty, changed her name, married into a small pack, and disappeared. She didn't want to be found. She didn't wantyouto be found."
Suddenly quiet, Sage felt a lump rise. What made this so hard?
"Because the Ashford bloodline carries something. A genetic trait that appears once every few generations. Something that hasn't manifested in over five hundred years."
For a moment, he stopped. Heavy silence filled the space, thick with what came next.
"The Ashford bloodline produces Quintessences."
Nothing about that word reached Sage. In her thoughts it stayed, much like a rock left on a bare floor - there, yet going nowhere.
"I don't know what that is."
"I know you don't. Your mother made sure of it. She hid you so thoroughly that you grew up believing you were nobody. An orphan from a dissolved pack. A warrior with no lineage."
"I am a warrior with no lineage."
"You are the potential heir to the most powerful wolf ability in recorded history. A Quintessence is a wolf who can form mate bonds with multiple Alphas - not two, which is rare enough, but four or more. And through those bonds, a Quintessence can create a pack of unprecedented power. The Alphas bonded to a Quintessence become exponentially stronger. Their wolves synchronize. Their abilities compound. A pack built around a Quintessence bond isn't just strong - it's a force that can reshape the hierarchy of every pack on the continent."
Her eyes locked on his face. Stillness filled the space between them.
Out of nowhere, her voice cut through the silence. Impossible, she whispered.
I agree. Even so, there you stand - bound to Rhett, tied without warning - He cut off mid-breath. Muscles along his face tightened. For one fractured instant, calm gave way, revealing something bare, real, barely held in check. Connected to me too
The hush after stretched like an open field at dusk.
Something shifted inside Sage's wolf. Not a spark of joy. A hum, low and steady, rising from bone-deep memory. As if words from Kieran unlocked an old truth buried far beneath skin and instinct - the difference wasn't new, never was. It stretched beyond bloodlines, past what science could name or pack law contained. This hunger - to be seen, to be known - had clawed quietly since birth.
One bond between mates. Another Alpha in the mix. Kieran claimed even further ones were coming.
What number? she wondered. To herself, her words felt far away.
"The prophecy says five. One Quintessence. Four Alphas."
"Rhett. You. Who else?"
"There are two others. Both in the north. Both waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"For you."
Darkness filled her view when Sage shut her eyelids.
That baby girl never knew her real name. Her mom tucked her away long ago. A new last name came next. Then every trace got wiped out clean. Twenty-five years passed like nothing. Not one clue reached Sage. The woman who gave birth - Elena Ashford, not Cross - stared at the tiny face and chose vanishing as protection.
This thing - whatever Sage had been, whatever a Quintessence truly stood for - carried risk too sharp to face openly.
Fleeing came to an end just then.
"My mother," Sage said, opening her eyes. "She died when I was nine. House fire. That's what they told me."
A flicker crossed Kieran's face. Just a twitch, really. Yet it said what words didn't.
"That's what they told you," he repeated.
"It wasn't a fire."
"It was an attack. Your parents were killed by wolves who wanted to prevent the Quintessence prophecy from being fulfilled. They'd been hunting your mother for years. They found her."
"Who?"
"A faction within the Council of Alphas. The same council that oversees inter-pack governance. The same council that Crimson Howl's corruption connects to."
Thoughts sprinted through Sage's head. From one idea to another, patterns began to click - like threads pulling tight. Crimson Howl wasn't just fractured; it was rotting at the core. Cash vanishing into places no one could trace. Strangers poking at edges they shouldn't touch. Vivienne reaching higher, always climbing. Then there was Declan - cool, calm, ready to burn his people just to hide a truth.
Everything tied together somehow. Each piece pointed toward one spot.
"They killed my parents," Sage said. "And now they're coming for me."
"They've been coming for you since the day you were born. Your mother bought you sixteen years by hiding. Crimson Howl bought you six more by being too arrogant to look at what was standing right in front of them." Kieran's voice hardened. "That time is over. The mate bonds are activated. Your scent is changing. A shift in the Deadlands pulses through the air, sensed by every tuned-in wolf for hundreds of miles. Within days - perhaps even hours - the Council will catch wind of it
"And you want to - what? Use me? Build your super-pack? Play politics with my blood?"
Kieran flinched.
A tiny thing. Nearly unseen by anyone. Yet it existed, just the same.
"I want to keep you alive," he said. "Everything else is secondary."
"Is it? Because from where I'm standing, you let me get framed and tortured and thrown into the wilderness because it served your strategy. That doesn't sound like someone whose priority is keeping me alive."
Breathing mattered most. When Crimson Howl cracked open, stepping in would look like sheltering an Ashford. The Council watches too close. Their hunters move when bloodlines blur - not fighters, but killers with names on paper. Survival like yours wasn't meant to happen at all. I let you walk away - so it looked like luck. Chance. Not something planned behind the scenes. No traces left. No witnesses either
"And Rhett?"
"Rhett volunteered to be your first contact because he's the least threatening of us. Because his instinct is to protect, not to politic."
There it stood, Rhett's wolf frozen ahead. Glancing their way, its gaze shifted - amber-dark - from Sage to Kieran, carrying a look no one could mistake: unease sat deep in those eyes.
Everything reached his ears. Sounds never missed him.
That big brown wolf stared back at Sage. It pulled her from the shadows, silent and sure. No questions came when it wrapped her wrists - just care, steady and quiet. His boots fit awkwardly on her feet, left behind like a promise kept.
It was his duty to go. Still, kindness came by choice.
Truth lived in both places at once.
Suddenly facing Kieran again, Sage paused. His gaze settled on him without warning. A moment stretched between them, quiet but fixed.
"These others. The two in the north. What are they like?"
A flicker moved across Kieran's face - something almost real, which surprised her. Not quite kindness. Closer to an echo of it. A trace of a grin that faded years before they ever spoke.
"One of them is the most dangerous wolf I've ever encountered," Kieran said. "And I mean that as a compliment and a warning in equal measure."
"And the other?"
Kieran's jaw tightened.
"The other is the reason I sleep with one eye open."
Funny, how close Sage came to laughing. Just shy of it.
They kept walking.