Page 29 of Fated Wolf's Redemption

Marjorie grunts and gestures us inside.

She pours tea—no sugar, no questions—and waits until I’ve taken a sip before she speaks.

“You want answers about the mutants and about what’s being done to wolves who don’t come back whole.”

I nod. “We’ve got fragments. But we need names.”

She studies me for a long moment. Then she leans forward and says quietly, “Dr. Everett Cain.”

The name lands like a punch.

Marjorie continues, voice lower now. “He was a geneticist. Human. Brilliant. Cold. Obsessed with evolution. He visited our old vet, Arthur Whitfield, Isabella’s mentor. He believed shifters were proof of an ancient genetic anomaly. He thought he could ‘enhance’ it.”

“And the Crimson Claw?” I ask.

She gives a sharp shake of her head. “They’re a tool. Not the architect. Cain believed the future of humanity was hybrid. Controlled. He lost his license after a whistleblower leaked he was performing experiments which had no scientific value and were torturous to the animals involved. He disappeared after that. Last rumors had him heading east, toward Ash Creek.”

Kylie frowns. “Why Ash Creek?”

“There are places on this earth where the veil is thinner,” Marjorie says, eyes distant. “Where things from other realms can bleed through. Ash Creek is one of them. It always has been.

My fingers tighten on my cup. “Other realms.”

Marjorie looks at me. “What you Windriders call the Deep Below. The rest of us just pray we never see it.”

I lean forward. “So what’s Cain doing now? Opening doors?”

“No,” she says. “He’s not opening them. He’s using what came through them.”

That cold thread of dread slides down my spine again. The same feeling I had when I saw the handprint burned into the cabin wall.

“You think he’s breeding monsters?” Kylie asks.

“I think,” Marjorie says carefully, “he’s creating something that doesn’t belong in this world. And he’s not working alone.”

My pulse stutters. “Who?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she stands, walks to a cluttered shelf, and pulls down a leather-bound book older than anyone alive should own. She flips it open to a page filled with Windrider glyphs—like the ones on the cabin walls.

“This is what you’re dealing with,” she says. “Not war. Not politics. A rewriting of nature.”

The air in the room shifts. Kylie’s foot taps once, slow and thoughtful.

“Okay,” she says. “So… road trip to Ash Creek?”

I grin despite the storm in my gut. “Oh, hell yes.”

I pocket the image of the glyphs, thank Marjorie, and step back outside. The sky’s gone slate gray, and something in the wind hums like a warning.

Lucas is waiting at the lodge. He needs to hear this.

Cain’s name is more than just a lead. It’s a match dropped onto already smoldering kindling. And if we don’t figure out what kind of fire we’re dealing with soon… we may all burn.

By the time Kylie and I make it back to the lodge, dusk has swallowed the mountains. Shadows stretch long across the courtyard, and a sharp wind snakes through the pines, carrying the bite of something older than winter.

Lucas is waiting by the training ring, arms crossed, jaw tight. I can tell the second he sees me that something’s off. His eyes—those predatory eyes—narrow as he pushes off the fence and crosses to me in three purposeful strides.

“Where the hell have you been?” His voice is low and sharp, not loud—but dangerous in the way that makes my wolf perk up.

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