Page 42 of Hellfire to Come
Unscathed.
Expression unreadable.
He regarded us for the longest time, then stepped forward just enough that we could see the glint of something ceremonial hanging from his neck. A carved wooden pendant shaped like a crow’s talon.
“You fought,” he said calmly. “But you did not kill.” Suspicion laced his words and glinted in his dark eyes.
Brooklyn’s voice was a low rasp as she wiped sweat from her forehead with the bloody sleeve of her shirt, marking her facelike with war paint. “There was no one to kill. But, I hope I bleed enough to prove myself to you.”
He nodded once, a small smile tugging on one side of his lips.
“You may speak with Laughing Crow now.”
He’d barely finished the sentence when the wards parted for her like mist before moonlight.
I had no idea what I was expecting but it was rather uneventful after all the drama with conjuring spells and everything else.
There was no sound, no thunderous snap of magic, no chorus of ancestral judgment. Just the subtle unraveling of an invisible thread as the man nodded and gestured for us to follow. Brooklyn stepped forward, and the air bent around her. I followed on instinct, shadowing her movements without hesitation, my muscles taut, still riding the edge of a shift I hadn’t fully decided was a good idea or not. We played our card. If they didn’t know I was a shifter, they knew now.
And, it wasn’t trust in the land that made me go after my mate. It was trust in her. Where she walked, I followed. I will willingly walk into death to follow her.
But, the moment I stepped past the boundary, the air thickened. Power hung like smoke in this place, woven into the very dirt under our feet. It pressed against my skin, curious like a child yet, ancient, older than the roots of the trees. It felt like walking into the mouth of a great beast that hadn’t decided yet whether it wanted to feast.
Brooklyn said nothing, but I saw the tightness in her jaw, the way her fingers brushed the handle of her blade not out of threat, but caution. This was sacred ground. She knew that, she respected it enough to not draw a weapon. And for all her fury, all her anxiety, she treated it as such.
We followed the man down a winding path lined with cedar and the gnarled trunks of trees so old they seemed fossilized.Puddles of old water were sprinkled on all sides, our boots splashing through them occasionally. Symbols carved into the barks glowed faintly, not bright enough to see clearly, but enough to feel like we were being watched. Judged.
And then they appeared.
The first wolf emerged like a whisper from between two trees, silent, massive, fur dark as charred earth. Its eyes gleamed with recognition, not aggression. Then another appeared. Then another.
Within seconds, we were surrounded.
Not wolves, shifters.
A whole pack of them lined up one side of the road then the other, all their eyes locked on my mate.
I slid closer to Brooklyn instinctively, my hand tightening into a fist, every muscle in my body ready to fight but they didn’t move toward us. They circled, yes. But not like hunters. More like a congregation showing respect.
No growls. No baring of teeth. Only silent acknowledgement.
“What the hell…?” I murmured, glancing around.
“They remember,” the man said simply, not turning to face us. His voice carried like it was bouncing off a canyon wall. “They were Syndicate targets once. Until she freed them.”
I stared at the wolves again, now recognizing the differences between them, the color of their fur, the subtle shade of their eyes. These weren’t just any shifters. They had been weapons once. They had fought against the Council and I believed them to be dead. And she had let them go.
“You saved them.” I said to my mate. A statement, not a question.
She didn’t answer at first. Just stared at the wolves, her expression unreadable. Then she said, very quietly, “I gave them a choice. That’s all. I didn’t know if they’d survive.”
The silver-gray wolf, the largest, stepped forward and lowered his head to her. Not in submission. In reverence.
My breath caught. Not because of the gesture, but because of what it meant. I had always known Brooklyn was feared. I had always known she was powerful. But this… this was different.
She wasn’t feared here. She was honored.
The wolf’s gaze flicked to me, and for one suspended second, it felt like he was measuring me not just as her mate, but as a being. And then he dipped his head ever so slightly.
