Page 55 of Fated Wolf's Redemption

I close my eyes. “It means something came through already.”

I look up toward the mountains, toward the direction of the compound we haven’t infiltrated yet.

Cain didn’t open the gate. He opened a door inside it, and something has already walked through.

CHAPTER 15

LUCAS

The path narrows the higher we climb, winding through jagged ridgelines and shale-strewn drop-offs that would snap a weaker wolf’s ankle in half a second. The wind up here doesn’t just blow… it howls. The mountain doesn’t want us here. Neither does whatever waits inside for us.

Dead pine needles crunch under my boots, thick with frost, but I barely feel the cold. I’m running too hot—too wired, too aware. The energy in the air is wrong. It’s not just the altitude. The deeper we get into the Dead Valley range, the more the wind sounds like it’s speaking in a language no one understands. Except me.

We move in formation—tight, efficient, no wasted motion. Max flanks to the left, carrying a blade longer than my forearm and no time for bullshit. Kylie is on the right, tossing a small blade from hand to hand like she’s hoping something jumps out of the rocks just to break up the boredom. It won’t be boredom for long.

Sophia walks behind me. I feel her before I hear her—stormlight barely restrained, the surrounding air always just a little warmer, a little charged. We have spoken little sinceleaving the lodge this morning. We don’t need to. She’s already where I am. Head down. Eyes forward. Both of us locked into a rhythm that doesn’t come from planning. It’s instinct.

“I count four glyphs,” Max mutters as we reach a ridge, pointing with the tip of his blade. “Burned into the stone. Same mark as the threshold rune at the last facility.”

I crouch, brushing my fingers over one of them. The soot-covered rock is scorched. This wasn’t a drawing or a painting. It was a brand—heat-forged into the mountain.

Sophia steps up beside me. “These aren’t warning wards. They’re anchors.”

“Anchors for what?”

She points toward the valley below us. “A gate. This isn’t a lab, Lucas. It’s a ritual site. Look at the pattern—concentric placement, directional runes facing inward. Something’s buried in this rock, and they’re using these to call it up.”

Kylie glances over her shoulder. “So we’re hiking toward a haunted mountain altar. Love that for us.”

Oscar doesn’t laugh. He rarely does. Kylie’s the one with the sarcastic sense of humor. He taps the comms link in his ear and mutters, “Team One, be advised. Multiple glyphs found on the outer perimeter. Suggest structural binding ritual in progress.”

A crack of static answers, followed by, “Copy. Moving into secondary position.”

The other Nightshade scouts fan out while we push higher, the incline biting into my calves. Breathing gets harder the closer we get to the peak, but this is not altitude sickness. It’s something altogether different.

I hear it again. It starts low, beneath the wind. A hum more than a sound. It sinks into my bones like a vibration from within. Not painful—yet—but constant. Familiar. And wrong.

I stop moving. The mountain falls quiet. The team halts behind me.

Sophia’s voice is soft. “Lucas?”

I don’t answer. The hum is rising, splitting in two, then three—like it’s weaving a song only I can hear just under my skin. My vision darkens around the edges. The scent of ash fills my nose.

The call again. Clearer now. Like a rising whisper pressed to the base of my skull.

“Stoneblood. Stormborn. Come home.”

My hands shake. My wolf stirs, frantic, not with rage but confusion—torn between answering and fleeing—trapped and forbidden from doing either. I press my palm to the nearest boulder, trying to steady myself, but the glyph carved into it pulses beneath my skin like it recognizes me. Like it knows what I am.

“Lucas.” Sophia’s voice is sharper now.

I drop to one knee. The sound—no, the call—is clawing at my mind. My name echoes back at me in layers. A thousand voices. All me. All wrong.

Then hands. Warm, steady. Her hands.

Sophia drops in front of me, grabs my face between her palms, and slams her mouth onto mine.

The call stops as reason and reality return. The call shatters like glass. The world slams back into focus. The only sound now is the pounding of my heart and the soft, urgent rush of her breath against my lips.

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