Chapter 303
ALEXANDER
I was seated behind my desk, fingers steepled beneath my chin as I stared at nothing in particular.
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Cole stood near the window, arms folded across his chest. The late hour had settled heavily over the pack house, the corridors quiet, most lights dimmed. But this matter refused to rest, and so neither did I.
“I don’t like uncertainties inside my walls,” I said finally, breaking the silence.
Cole glanced at me but didn’t interrupt.
“If he’s human, then this ends cleanly,” I continued. “We relocate him somewhere appropriate. Quietly, safely. No risk to the pack.”
“And if he isn’t? What if Luna Faye is right?” Cole asked.
That was the question, wasn’t it?
I leaned back slowly in my chair.
Faye believed he was a wolf.
She trusted her instincts enough to stake an argument against me.
She had said she sensed it. That his wolf was present, just… disconnected.
Disconnected.
I exhaled through my nose.
If Roman was from a wolf bloodline… if there was even a drop of it in him… then there had to be a way to
confirm it. Instinct could mislead. Sympathy could cloud judgment.
But blood did not lie.
The only way that came to mind was a bit rash.
I let the thought settle in my mind before speaking.
“Wolfsbane.”
The word lingered in the air between us.
Cole’s brows lifted slightly. “What?”
I continued, voice even.
“Not enough to harm him permanently. Just enough to trigger a reaction.”
I rose from my chair and began pacing slowly.
“If he’s human, nothing will happen beyond mild irritation at most. But if he carries wolf blood…” I paused,
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turning slightly toward Cole. “His body will react.”
Wolfsbane had always been crude, but effective.
It did not require ritual.
It did not require belief.
It simply interacted with what was already there.
A wolf could not ignore it.
Even dormant wolves reacted.
Even weakened wolves reacted.
Pain, fever, suppressed healing.
The body recognized it as a threat.
If Roman felt nothing, then the matter was settled.
If he reacted-
Then Faye was right.
And that possibility burned in my chest.
Cole pushed off the window and stepped further into the room.
“You want to test him,” he said plainly.
“Yes.”
Cole studied me for a moment before speaking again.
For a pityo
“And you’ll administer it yourself.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Of course,” I replied.
This was not something I would delegate.
If I was going to challenge Faye’s claim, if I was going to risk potential harm to the boy, I would stand behind it fully.
Cole ran a hand over his jaw thoughtfully.
“This would settle it,” he admitted.
“It would,” I agreed.
Cole nodded once, slowly.
“And the Luna?” he asked.
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I held his gaze.
“I’ll inform her.”
That was not entirely true.
I would tell her.
After.
Telling her before would invite resistance.
She would argue the ethics. She would argue his condition.
She would argue trust.
And I did not want this buried beneath emotion.
This was a test, not punishment. It was a necessary measure.
Cole exhaled.
“There’s risk,” he said. “He’s still recovering.”
I said nothing.
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“He’s not fully healed,” Cole continued carefully. “If he truly is a wolf, the wolfsbane will interfere with that.”
“I know. I’ll control the dosage,” I replied. “I’m not trying to poison him.”
I could almost see the calculations running behind Cole’s expression. He trusted me. But he also
understood Faye.
“She won’t like it,” he said quietly.
I already knew that.
ROMAN
Sleep came easily that night.
Too easily.
I remember closing my eyes and feeling the quiet settle over me like a heavy blanket. There had been no
thoughts chasing each other in my head, no lingering conversations replaying themselves. Just stillness.
And then I was running.
I didn’t know where I was, but I knew I had to keep moving.
Trees blurred past me on either side. Tall, dark trunks stretching endlessly upward. The ground beneath my feet was uneven… roots and fallen branches catching at my steps… but I didn’t slow down. I couldn’t.
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My lungs burned.
The air felt thick, hard to pull in.
I didn’t know what I was running from at first. I just knew something was behind me.
Close.
Very close.
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The sound reached me before I saw anything… the steady thud hitting the forest floor. Heavy, controlled.
Not rushed.
Whoever… whatever… was chasing me wasn’t panicking.
It was certain.
I dared a glance over my shoulder.
And that was when I saw it… not a human being.
A wolf.
Massive.
Its fur was dark, almost blending into the shadows between the trees. Its eyes burned… not glowing unnaturally, but sharp and focused.
On me.
I stumbled but caught myself, forcing my legs to move faster.
My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears.
I didn’t understand.
Why was it chasing me?
Why did I feel like it knew me?
The forest seemed endless, every direction the same. No path, no clearing. Just trees and darkness and
the sound of those paws gaining ground.
I pushed harder.
Branches scraped my arms. My breath came in ragged pulls.
The wolf didn’t snarl.
Didn’t growl.
It didn’t need to.
Its presence alone was enough to send panic slicing through me.
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I ran until my legs felt like they might give out.
Then my foot caught on something solid.
A root.
I pitched forward.
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The ground rushed up to meet me, knocking the air from my lungs as I hit hard. Dirt filled my mouth. Pain flared along my palms and knees.
For a second, everything went still.
The pounding of paws stopped.
Silence swallowed the forest.
I rolled onto my back, heart racing wildly, and looked toward where the wolf had been.
Nothing.
Empty trees.
No movement.
No sound.
It was gone.
I lay there, chest heaving, staring into the darkness between the trunks.
Had I imagined it?
Had it ever been there?
Slowly, cautiously, I pushed myself up into a sitting position.
The forest felt different now.
Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that presses in from all sides.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to stand.
If it wasn’t behind me anymore, maybe I could-
I turned around.
And it was there.
Not twenty feet away.
Not across the trees.
Right in front of me.
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Close enough that I could see the individual strands of fur along its shoulders. Close enough that I could
see the rise and fall of its chest.
It stood directly in my path.
Blocking me.
Its eyes locked onto mine.
I froze.
Every instinct screamed at me to move, to run, to do something… but my body wouldn’t respond.
The wolf didn’t lunge.
Didn’t bare its teeth.
It simply stared at me.
And then-
It spoke.
“Roman, wake up.”
The voice didn’t come from its mouth the way human speech would. It felt like it came from everywhere at once. From the trees. From the ground. From inside my head.
“Roman, wake up.”
My pulse spiked.
The world around me seemed to shift, blur at the edges.
How did it know my name?
I tried to step back, but my feet felt rooted to the earth.
Fear surged through me… sharp and cold.
The wolf took one deliberate step closer.
“Wake up.”
Its eyes were the last thing I saw before everything fractured.
The forest shattered into darkness.
I jerked upright with a gasp.
My chest heaved as if I had truly been running. Sweat clung to my skin, dampening my shirt and dripping down the side of my face. My heart pounded violently against my ribs, each beat echoing in my ears.
For a moment, I didn’t know where I was.
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The room slowly came into focus around me.
The walls.
The bed.
The faint outline of furniture in the dim light.
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I dragged in a shaky breath, pressing a hand against my chest as if I could steady the frantic rhythm there.
It had felt real. And I still couldn’t believe it was a dream.
The weight of the fall.
The sound of the paws.
The way it said my name.
I swallowed hard, staring ahead into nothing.
What kind of dream was that?
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