Chapter 16The Marked Path

The firelight painted Dorian's face in sharp angles, his jaw tight as he stared at the small fragment of Moonstone in Rissa's palm. It pulsed with a faint blue light, like a heartbeat made of ice.

"No," he said flatly.

"I didn't ask permission." Rissa pressed the fragment into his hand, and he flinched as if burned. "Listen to me. Vance knows where I am because of the fragment inside me. That means I can know where *he* is too—if I plant one on him."

"By walking into his trap."

"By using the trap he's already set." She touched her chest, where the corruption hummed beneath her ribs. "He wants me as a vessel. Fine. Let him think he's getting what he wants."

Dorian's fingers closed around the fragment, his knuckles white. "And when he realizes you've marked him? He'll kill you."

"Not before he tries to use me. That gives you time."

"Time for what?"

"To find Elara. To gather anyone who still remembers what the pack was before the stone corrupted it." Rissa stepped closer, close enough to smell the blood drying on his shirt from the wound she'd barely managed to bandage. "You have the tracking phrase. You have the fragment. You can find me when it's time."

His hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. "And if I can't?"

The fragment inside her pulsed, and for a moment, she felt the urge to snap at him, to pull away and run headlong into the darkness. She forced it down. "Then I'll find you."

She pulled free before he could argue further, turning toward the cave entrance. The dawn mist hung thick and gray, muffling the world into silence.

"Rissa."

She paused.

Dorian's voice cracked. "Don't make me watch you walk into death."

She didn't turn around. "Then don't watch."

---

The mist parted like a curtain as she stepped into the clearing.

They found her within minutes—two enforcers emerging from the treeline, their eyes glowing amber in the half-light. Behind them, three more. Then six. Their forms blurred between human and wolf, muscles rippling under torn shirts, claws lengthening.

Rissa stood still. She let her hands hang loose at her sides.

One of them circled her, sniffing the air. "She smells like the alpha."

"Good," Rissa said, and let her voice carry a tremor she didn't have to fake. "Take me to him."

They searched her roughly—hands patting her clothes, her boots, her hair. She bit her tongue and thought of Dorian's face in the firelight. When they found nothing, the lead enforcer grunted and grabbed her arm.

Vance waited in the throne room, seated on the same stone chair where she'd watched him pass judgment on traitors. The Moonstone shard on the pedestal behind him pulsed in rhythm with the fragment inside her chest—a syncopated beat that made her teeth ache.

He didn't stand when they shoved her to her knees.

"You came back." His voice was soft, almost gentle. "I knew you would."

"I had nowhere else to go." She made her voice small. Broken. "The human left me. The fragment—it's too strong. I can feel it pulling me back."

Vance rose, crossing the room in slow, deliberate steps. He stopped in front of her, and she smelled leather and pine and old blood. "The fragment chose you. Do you know what that means?"

She shook her head, keeping her eyes downcast.

"It means you're worthy of becoming the vessel." He crouched, tilting her chin up with one finger. "The Moonstone's power has been corrupting the pack for generations. The madness, the hunger—it comes from the stone's need for blood fury. But if I transfer its consciousness to a willing vessel, the stone becomes dormant. The pack is saved. And you—" He smiled, a predator's smile. "You become something more than human."

"And the vessel?" she whispered. "What happens to her?"

"She becomes the heart of the pack. Immortal. Untouchable."

She felt the lie beneath his words like a splinter under skin. He didn't want to save the pack. He wanted to control it, forever, without the stone's madness consuming him.

But she smiled, letting him see only relief. "Then I accept."

He reached down to help her rise, and as his hand closed around her arm, she let the small fragment slide from her sleeve into his pocket. He didn't notice—his eyes were already glazing with triumph.

"Tonight, we begin the ritual."

"Ithiran ka'veth," she whispered.

Vance froze. The blue light in his pocket flared, and he gasped, clutching his chest where the fragment she'd planted pulsed against his ribs. His eyes snapped to hers, wide with fury.

"What did you do?"

"Morath teth." She smiled, and this time it was real. "Now we're both marked."

His hand connected with her cheek before she could brace—a backhand that sent her sprawling across the stone floor. Blood filled her mouth, hot and metallic. But she laughed, the sound scraping out of her throat like broken glass.

"You think this changes anything?" He grabbed her by the hair, yanking her upright. "I'll rip the fragment out of you myself."

"You can try." She met his eyes, let him see the madness the corruption had planted in her—or maybe the madness had always been there, waiting for a reason to bloom. "But you need me alive for your ritual. And I know something you don't."

He waited.

She spat blood at his feet. "Willing sacrifice only works if the blood is given freely. You can't take what I won't give."

---

Dorian dropped through the cell window, landing in a crouch.

The corridor stretched ahead, torchlight painting the damp stone in orange shadows. He pressed the fragment against his palm and whispered the phrase Rissa had taught him. The blue light pulsed, pulling him left.

Three turns. Two locked doors. One enforcer unconscious in a hallway.

He found Elara in a cell at the end of the corridor, chained to the wall, her face hollowed by exhaustion. When she saw him, her eyes widened.

"Dorian?"

"No time." He worked the lock with shaking fingers, the wound in his shoulder screaming. "We need to move."

The clang of the cell door opening echoed down the corridor.

And behind it, footsteps.

Dorian turned.

Kellan stood at the end of the hall, his brother's face slack, his eyes glowing amber with no trace of recognition. Enforcer tattoos spiraled up his neck, fresh and raw. Behind him, a half-dozen more wolves emerged from the shadows.

"Kellan." Dorian's voice cracked. "It's me."

Kellan tilted his head, like a dog hearing a strange sound. Then he lunged.

Dorian caught his brother's wrist, the impact jarring through his injured arm. Kellan's strength was inhuman, his movements jerky and wrong, as if something else was pulling his strings.

"I won't fight you."

Kellan's claws raked across Dorian's chest, tearing through fabric and skin. Dorian stumbled back, blood soaking his shirt. Elara screamed behind him.

Still, he didn't raise his fists.

"Brother." He grabbed Kellan's face, forcing his brother to meet his eyes. "I know you're in there. *Fight.*"

For a heartbeat, the amber flickered.

Then Kellan's fist connected with Dorian's jaw, and the world went white.

---

Rissa felt the impact through the tracking fragment—a spike of pain that wasn't her own. Dorian. She gasped, and Vance's grip tightened on her hair.

"What's wrong?"

She didn't answer. She reached out with her senses, following the thread of blue light that connected her to the fragment in Vance's pocket. It was moving, pulling her deeper into the compound, toward the main chamber where the Moonstone's heart pulsed.

And beneath that, another fragment. Smaller. Close.

Kellan.

He was coming for her.