Pain dragged her back to the living world, one nerve at a time.
Aria's shoulder throbbed in time with her heartbeat, each pulse sending fresh fire through torn muscle. Her ankle had swollen inside its makeshift binding—strips of what felt like her own shift, now stiff with dried blood. But she was breathing. Against all logic, all natural law, she was breathing.
And she wasn't where she'd fallen.
The boulder shelter was gone. In its place, she lay beneath an overhang of twisted roots, protected from the worst of the fog that still clung to the forest floor. Someone had moved her. Someone had bound her wounds with rough efficiency, packed her shoulder with moss that smelled of mint and copper.
Someone was watching her now.
She felt it before she saw him—a presence that made the air itself hold its breath. Her body screamed at her to stay still, play dead, but Aria had played enough roles for one lifetime. She opened her eyes fully, letting him know she was aware.
"You bled like prey," a voice said from the shadows. Deep. Rough as stone scraped over stone. "But you burned like prophecy."
He stepped into her line of sight, and Aria forgot how to breathe.
This was no pack wolf. No civilized creature bound by law and tradition. He moved like the forest itself had taken flesh—all coiled power and patient death. Scars crosshatched his bare chest and arms, each one a story written in silver-white tissue. His hair hung wild past his shoulders, dark as old bark with threads of premature gray. But it was his eyes that held her—gold as the thread she'd lost, gold as ancient coins, gold as the heart of flame.
He wore no pack markers. No sign of rank or allegiance. Just worn leather pants and the kind of stillness that came from being the apex predator in any room—or forest—he chose to enter.
"Who are you?" Her voice came out cracked, but she forced steel into it.
He tilted his head, studying her like she was something fascinating he'd found beneath a rock. "What's left after the thread breaks."
Not an answer. Aria tried to push herself upright, biting down on the whimper that wanted to escape as her shoulder protested. He watched her struggle, making no move to help. His expression held neither pity nor cruelty—just a kind of detached interest, like a naturalist observing a new species.
"Get up," he said when she'd managed to prop herself against the root wall. "Or die on your back. That's the rule out here."
"I didn't ask for your help."
"You didn't refuse it either." He crouched just outside her reach, balanced on the balls of his feet. This close, she could smell him—pine smoke and iron, wild honey and the particular musk of a wolf who'd been rogue so long he'd forgotten what pack scent felt like. "The corrupted thing would have hollowed you out, worn your skin, used your voice to lure others. You're welcome."
Aria's good hand found the moss packed against her shoulder. It was expertly done, the kind of field healing that spoke of experience with wounds gotten far from any healer's touch. "Why?"
"Why save you?" He shrugged, a motion that made his scars catch the dim light. "Curiosity. Been a long time since I saw silver fire that didn't come from the Goddess herself. Been longer since I saw someone choose to burn rather than break."
"I didn't choose anything. It just—happened."
His laugh was dark, soft, dangerous. "Nothing 'just happens' to the severed. We become what the pain makes us, or we become nothing." His gold eyes narrowed. "That corrupted thing you fought? That's what nothing looks like. Hunger wearing a wolf's shape. You"—he gestured to her torn shoulder, her swollen ankle, the blood still crusted beneath her nails—"you look like something else."
"Like what?"
"Haven't decided yet."
Aria forced herself straighter, though the movement sent fresh agony through her ankle. She would not cower. Would not show weakness to this strange male who spoke in riddles and watched her like she might spontaneously combust. "I need to go."
"Where?" He didn't move, but somehow his stillness became more pronounced. "Back to the pack that threw you out like spoiled meat? To the Alpha who carved your heart out for an audience?" Something shifted in his expression—not quite sympathy, but recognition. "Or maybe you think you'll find another pack to take you in. A severed Omega with silver fire in her veins. I'm sure they'll welcome you with open arms."
The words hit harder than claws. Because he was right. There was nowhere to go. No pack would accept a rejected wolf—it was bad luck, bad precedent. And one who'd manifested whatever had saved her from the corrupted creature? They'd kill her for witchcraft or worship her for power, neither of which would end well.
"Then what?" she asked, hating how small her voice sounded. "What do severed wolves do?"
"Die, mostly." He rose in one fluid motion, began to pace the small space. "Some go mad, like your friend back there. Some throw themselves off cliffs rather than feel the hollow grow. Some few—very few—learn to fill the empty space with something else."
"Like what?"
He stopped pacing, fixed her with those impossible gold eyes. "Purpose. Rage. Power stolen rather than given." His lips curved in what might have been a smile on a saner face. "The Moon Goddess gave us threads to bind us, make us weak, keep us leashed to her will. But what happens when you cut a leash?"
Aria's chest tightened. Not with pain—the hollow ache was still there—but with something else. Something that tasted like heresy. "You're free."
"Or you're lost. Depends on what you do with the freedom." He moved toward the overhang's entrance, paused at the threshold. "Your thread was cut, not severed clean. That's why it burns. Your Alpha"—he said the word like it tasted foul—"he did it wrong. Publicly. Cruelly. Left jagged edges that will never heal."
"How do you know that?"
"Because mine was the same." He turned back, and for a moment she saw it—the shadow of old pain that never quite left. "Twenty years ago. My mate chose another, rejected me for a wolf with better bloodline, better prospects. The Elders called it the Goddess's will. Said I should accept it, find peace in submission."
"What did you do?"
His smile was all teeth. "I chewed through mine."
The words hung between them like a blade. Aria stared at him, at this creature who'd chosen to mutilate his own soul rather than live with rejection. "That's not possible."
"Neither is silver fire from an Omega's skin. Yet here we are." He stepped fully outside, his form beginning to merge with the fog. "The forest is changing, little flame. You woke something when you burned. The old things are stirring, and the packs won't be ready."
"Wait." She tried to stand, managed two steps before her ankle buckled. "You're just leaving?"
He paused, looked back over his shoulder. "You survived the first night. That's more than most. But if you want to live longer, you need to learn the real rules. Not the pretty lies they teach in pack halls."
"Then teach me."
The words escaped before she could stop them. But once said, she couldn't take them back. Didn't want to. This male—this rogue who'd survived twenty years severed—he knew something. Something that might fill the hollow place where her thread used to live.
He studied her for a long moment. Then: "Find me again. If the wild doesn't eat you first." He took another step, paused once more. "And little flame? Next time something hunts you, don't follow the moon. Follow the fire."
Then he was gone, melting into the fog like he'd never been there at all. Only his scent lingered—wild honey and iron, smoke and ancient things.
Aria stood there on her broken ankle until her leg gave out entirely. She crawled back to the overhang, curled into the space he'd left her. Her shoulder throbbed. Her chest ached. Everything hurt.
But beneath the pain, something else stirred. Not the silver fire—that had retreated back to wherever it lived. This was different. Smaller. Quieter.
Hope.
She'd survived the night. Survived the severing. Survived the corrupted thing that had wanted to wear her pain like a coat. And somewhere in this cursed forest was a wolf who'd not only survived the same—he'd transformed it into something else.
Find me again.
Aria pressed her palm against the moss on her shoulder, felt the careful way he'd packed the wound. A stranger. A rogue. A wolf who'd chewed through his own thread rather than live leashed.
If the wild doesn't eat you first.
"It won't," she whispered to the fog, to the forest, to whatever listened in the spaces between heartbeats. "I've been eaten enough."
The morning would come eventually. And when it did, she'd stand. Walk. Hunt.
Learn to burn properly.
Learn to be what came after the thread broke.
Learn to be free.