Page 46 of Fated Wolf's Redemption

That stops her.

“They exiled her,” I continue. “But Cain found her. Or she found him. Either way, they’re working together.”

Karla walks to a shelf and pulls down a scroll, cracked and ancient. She lays it flat on the table. “Lina wasn’t just exiled. People believed her to be destroyed. Her power fractured thebond. She started carving Windwoven sigils into her skin—burning them with iron. She thought if she carried the glyphs in her body, she could control the storm without channeling it. No conduit. Just pain.”

Kylie leans over the scroll. “Did it work?”

“She survived it. Barely.” Karla taps a mark—one I recognize from the glyph in Cain’s lab. “But it broke her. She didn’t believe in balance anymore. Only obedience.”

“And now she’s back,” I say softly. “I saw her.”

They both look at me.

“In a vision,” I add. “While reading one of the older scrolls. She was with Cain. They were standing at the gate. And her skin… someone had carved it head to toe. The glyphs were black.”

Karla’s face goes pale. “Then she’s not just back. She’s feeding the gate.”

I nod. “And she knows how to open it from the other side.”

Kylie pulls her second blade and tucks it into her boot. “Guess that answers whether we’re going to need more knives.”

I fold the scroll carefully, tuck it under my arm, and stand. “We need to go. If Lina’s this close to finishing the summoning pattern, we’re already behind.”

Karla touches my wrist. “Be careful. Stormblood can seal the gate again—but only if it’s truly balanced. That means sacrifice.”

I nod, throat tight. “I know.”

As we ride back toward the mountains, the wind picks up. Not just a breeze—this is the storm calling. The bond surging beneath the earth.

And in the distance, I swear I feel something respond. Not just the wind. But the gate… it’s waking, and Lina’s going to make damn sure it doesn’t sleep again.

The mist starts low—thin curls of fog trailing across the path like spilled breath—but it moves wrong. Too precise. Too aware.

I rein in my horse with a low whistle. Kylie does the same a few yards ahead, turning in her saddle.

“You feel that?” I ask.

“Yeah. Something’s off.” She flips the safety off the crossbow mounted to her saddle. “People consider the lowlands to be haunted as hell, but that’s different.”

I let the reins go slack, letting my fingers graze the leather pommel of my blade. My pulse isn’t racing, but my skin has that static-tingle feeling like before a lightning strike. The air is too still. The birds are too quiet. I nudge my horse forward, careful. Controlled.

And then I hear it—one breath too many. Just off the trail, buried behind the veil of fog.

I dismount without a word. Kylie doesn’t speak, but I feel her move in the saddle, angling to cover my flank. I walk a few paces into the trees, drawing the blade at my back. The silence thickens like honey, cloying and slow.

Another step… then the crack of a branch—barely audible—but I’m already moving.

I pivot hard and drive my blade toward the source, just as something rushes me from the side. I duck, roll, and land in a crouch.

He’s Crimson Claw, but barely. His body is too thin, too stretched. Like Cain stitched muscle where there should be bone. His eyes glow red in the fog, and his mouth is curled in a snarl, fangs visible even in his half-formed face. He doesn’t speak. Just launches at me again, and I don’t hold back.

The storm answers me before I even call it. It surges from the soles of my feet, drawn through my veins, riding the crackling fury that’s been waiting since I saw Lina’s face in that vision. Mist coils around me, shot through with violet and silver. My fingers twitch, and the air splits with a thunderclap.

Lightning tears down from the sky like it’s tethered to my spine. The force of the change rips through me—mist and wind crashing through every bone, bending muscle and form into my other self. I hit the ground on four legs, silver fur slick with rain that hasn’t fallen yet.

The Crimson Claw doesn’t flinch. He comes at me fast—too fast—but I’m faster. I hit him low, taking him down at the ribs. The impact shudders through us both, but I recover first. My jaws clamp around his throat and I drive him into the dirt hard enough to crack roots. He kicks once, twice, then stops moving.

His scent is poison. Old blood, chemicals, something that shouldn’t exist. I pull back, heart thundering in my chest.

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