Page 12 of Alpha’s Divine Claim

Nova’s hand goes to her own wrist. She doesn’t catch herself doing it until I do. “What does it mean, that it starts with her?”

“It means Drakoria’s where we go first. It’s the only point on this thing I can see.”

“Past that, it goes dark.” I follow the line further and get nothing back. No signature. Nothing to place. The same blank I get every time I reach for whatever Valen actually is underneath. “I can’t read past the first point. Not the next realm. Not how far it runs. Not where it ends.”

I try again anyway, pushing past Drakoria the way I’d try a locked door a second time, half expecting a different answer. Nothing changes. The dark past the first point gives back exactly the same nothing however I come at it.

“This is Faelan’s work.” I look up from the marks to the room. “His own path through the realms, built into the three of you on purpose. It only shows one step at a time. My best read says each realm holds a piece of it and carrying that piece home is what wakes the next point. I can’t promise that’s how it works. It’s the only way forward I can find.”

Nova’s voice stays steady, already turning the fact over for what it takes from the pack, not for what it means to her alone. “So, we walk it blind. One realm at a time. And hope.”

“Yes.”

“Who’s walking it?” Dane asks.

“Me. And Valen.” I don’t hesitate over that part. “The marks move when he’s near. That’s the only reason I’ve got a read at all. The three of you carry the marks. You don’t have to carry yourselves through them.”

There’s one more piece and saying it will make it true in a way I can’t take back once it’s out of my mouth. I look at the trail one more time, at the single line the three marks make when they stop fighting each other, and every part of that line bends toward the same point.

“It answers to Valen.” I say it to the room, with him standing right there to hear it. “Without him near, the knotwork won’t hold still long enough to read at all. Whatever this trail is, it’s built to need him.”

Every wolf in the room turns to him at once.

“Of course it does.” Rafe’s voice goes low and hard. “Of course, the trail nobody can predict answers to the one man nobody can predict. That’s proof he’s tied to whatever this is. Deeper than any of us knew.”

“That’s not proof of anything.” I don’t let my voice climb, though more arms cross around the room with every word.

“There’s no reading it without him.” Nova cuts through before it goes further, already thinking three steps past the argument. “Whatever he is or isn’t, that part’s fact.”

“Fact or not, I don’t like it.” Wyatt, near the door, not moving off it. “The trail nobody can read answers to the one man nobody can read. That’s worth worrying about.”

“It’s not proof he’s dangerous.” Harper says quietly, thinking it through out loud. “It might just mean he’s built into this the same way we are.”

“Built in how?” Wyatt again, not backing down. “Nobody asked to be built into anything. He showed up yesterday and now the whole trail turns on him. That’s not coincidence, that’s a target on our backs.”

“Or it’s the reason we’ve got a way forward at all.” Nova doesn’t raise her voice to say it. “Pick which one matters more to you and act accordingly. I know which one I’m picking.”

The pack splits clean down that line. Half of them look at Valen like he’s the danger they always suspected. The other half look at the marks and understand, the way Nova does, that nobody reads those marks at all unless he’s standing right there.

I take in all of it in one breath. This is bigger than three women and a healer’s room. This is Faelan’s hand reaching directly into the people I love. I only just found the edge of it. I already know I haven’t found the bottom.

My attention goes to Valen. He holds still while half the room decides he’s the enemy, arms crossed over his chest, muscle visible where his sleeves are pushed up, nothing in his stance giving them a single thing to work with, the same stillness I watched him carry when this whole yard turned on him yesterday. He stands there and lets them argue, gray eyes level on Dane instead of on any one accuser, hair falling over his forehead, his whole body planted like a man who’s already decided none of this can touch him. Somehow that stillness makes half the room angrier than shouting would have. The urge to put myself at his side again rises in me, sudden and unwelcome. I don’t move.

I don’t tell the room the rest. I don’t say that reaching into the dark past Drakoria feels exactly like reaching for him: the same nothing comes back either way. I don’t say I think the two are connected somehow, or that I have no idea how. I don’t know where either one ends.

There’s no walking this without him. The man I can’t read and can’t stop watching is about to be at the center of everything this pack does next. I’m the one who just put him there.

This is what I have: a trail I can read one step into and no further, and a man every line of it points to, standing six feet away like he doesn’t know he’s already the center of it. I don’t know yet how far that road runs, or what walking it will take from me.

Chapter 9

Valen

The lodge common room hasn’t changed since I walked into it. Same woodsmoke, herbs by the hearth, three marks laid out on the table like something that could be read if you knew how to look at it. What’s changed is everyone in it now knows what those marks are, and half of them have decided that’s my fault. The window light’s moved since I first crossed this floor, warmer now, later in the morning, though nobody in this room has stepped outside to notice it. We’ve been at this a while.

Dane stands where he’s been since I got here, near the hearth, hands hooked in his belt, the kind of stillness that means he’s already decided most of what he thinks and is waiting to hear the rest. Rafe hasn’t stopped watching me since I walked past him. Wyatt, near the door, holds the same stillness as Dane, though nothing behind his eyes is half as settled. Ben sits at the far end of the table, quiet so far, the kind of quiet that isn’t the same as having nothing to say. Callum leans against the wall by the window, arms loose, eyes on the door and windows more than on me. Evren’s near the door too, younger than the rest, restless in a way that has nothing to do with me.

Nyxiana stands closest to the table. Silver-white hair pulled back off her face, the violet of her eyes catching the window light every time she turns her head toward whoever’s speaking. She’s shorter than almost every wolf in this room and she’s the one they’ve all angled toward. I still can’t read her.