The cold hit Ariella the moment she dropped from the window ledge onto the frost-covered ground behind her room.
She moved fast at first, sticking to the old deer trails she and Arlo used to sneak when they were kids.
The Fracture waited north.
Everyone said only an idiot went there alone, especially an unshifted girl.
Rogues.
No rules, no mercy.
She didn’t care.
Grimshaw’s contract was three days away.
Dying free beat living as their fix.
An hour in, the snow got deeper.
Her legs burned.
The coat Axel left her two winters ago kept the worst of the wind off, but the cold still crept under her clothes.
She chewed a piece of jerky without tasting it.
The folding knife sat heavy in her pocket, his note still rubber-banded to the handle.
The warmth started low in her stomach somewhere past the second ridge.
It didn’t feel like exertion, it felt like heat spreading under her skin while the air froze her lungs.
Sweat beaded on her forehead.
She stumbled, caught herself on a pine trunk, and kept going.
This had to be the start of a heat.
The one that never came when she was sixteen or eighteen.
Of course it would hit now, out here, alone.
Twigs snapped behind her.
Ariella froze, then she ran.
Boots pounded the snow, multiple sets.
Fast.
She crashed through a stand of young pines, branches whipping her face, lungs screaming.
The heat spiked hard, turning her vision white at the edges.
She made it another hundred yards before a body slammed into her from the side.
They hit the ground hard.
Snow filled her mouth.
She twisted, elbow flying, and connected with something solid.
A grunt.
Asher’s voice, sharp and pissed.
“Stay down, damn it.”
She drove her knee up.
He cursed and pinned her wrists.
Atlas reached them first, flashlight cutting through the dark.
Aiden and Arlo came next.
Axel hung back at the edge of the light like he always did.
Atlas’s voice was pure ice.
“Enough.
You’re coming home.”
Ariella bucked hard.
“Get off me.”
Asher laughed under his breath, the same nasty sound from earlier.
“Or what?
You gonna shift and make me?” He leaned closer.
“Oh wait.
You can’t.”
“Asher.” Atlas didn’t raise his voice.
He never needed to.
“Let her up.
She’s not going anywhere.”
Asher rolled off but kept a hand fisted in her coat.
Ariella scrambled to her knees, chest heaving.
The five of them stood in a loose circle around her.
Like they were circling in on their prey.
“You tracked me,” she said.
It wasn’t a question.
Atlas clicked the flashlight off, then on again, checking the tree line.
“You left a trail even a blind human could follow.
Phone off, but you didn’t cover your tracks.
Rookie mistake.”
“I wasn’t trying to hide from strangers,” she shot back.
“I was leaving you guys alone.”
Arlo stepped forward.
His golden eyes—her eyes—looked wrecked.
“Ella, please.
Just come back.
We can figure something else out.
Talk to Dad again.
Maybe delay the contract—”
“There is no delay.” Atlas cut him off.
“The council signed off.
Grimshaw’s people are already moving money.
You walking out tonight made us look weak.
Again.”
Ariella laughed once, a bitter, cracked sound.
“I made you look weak?
I stood in that room and reminded every single one of you what you used to be.
I’m no coward like you guys.
You broke a kid’s arm for me, Atlas.
You punched a teacher for me, Asher.
You sat with me when I was sick, Aiden.
You fed me in secret, Axel.
And you—” she looked straight at Arlo—”you promised you would always pick me.
Then you all sat there while Mom told me I’d had twenty years to fix myself.
While Dad said the pack comes first.”
Silence.
Snow fell in fat flakes between them.
Asher was the one who broke it.
He crouched so they were eye level, switchblade already spinning in his fingers like he couldn’t help himself.
“You want the truth, little sister?
Fine.
You are the reason.
Every deal that fell through.
Every time another pack laughed at the Hayes name.
Every girl who turned me down because she didn’t want diluted pups.
I used to carry you home when you twisted your ankle.
I don’t anymore.
Because carrying you is all I’ve done for six fucking years and I’m done.”
Aiden flinched like he’d been slapped.
He stared at the snow.
“I didn’t want this.
I still don’t.
But Atlas is right.
The company.
The pack.
It’s bigger than one person.”
“Say what you mean,” Ariella said quietly.
“It’s bigger than me.”
Axel finally spoke, voice low.
“We should get her back before the temperature drops more.
She’s already shaking.”
She looked at him, really looked.
“You left me the knife.
The cake.
The coat.
And you still won’t stand next to me where they can see.”
His jaw flexed.
He didn’t deny it.
He just looked away, the same way he always did in public.
Arlo’s voice cracked.
“I love you.
I do.
But if we lose the northern contracts the whole pack suffers.
Kids go hungry.
People lose jobs.
You think I don’t hate myself every day?
I do.
I just… I can’t be the one who burns it all down for you.”
There it was.
The truth laid bare in the snow.
Atlas stepped closer.
No anger on his face, just that cold, exhausted duty.
“You’re my sister.
That doesn’t change.
But I am going to be an Alpha.
My job is to keep Black Ridge standing.
Right now you are the crack in the foundation.
Grimshaw takes you, the crack gets patched, and the rest of us get to keep living.
I’m sorry it has to be this way.
I am.
But I will drag you back myself if I have to.”
Ariella pushed to her feet.
The heat inside her roared higher, sweat freezing on her skin.
She felt hollowed out and on fire at the same time.
“Then you’ll have to drag me.
Because I am not walking back into that so you can feel better about selling me.”
She turned and ran.
She made it six steps.
Asher caught her around the waist and lifted her clean off the ground.
She fought like something feral—elbows, heels, teeth.
The knife was in her hand before she thought about it.
She slashed.
Asher hissed and dropped her.
Blood welled dark across his forearm.
“You little bitch—”
Atlas moved fast.
He twisted the knife away and shoved her back.
She hit a tree hard enough to knock the air out.
The heat chose that moment to crest.
Pain tore through her middle, so sharp she folded and dropped to her knees.
A sound ripped out of her throat that didn’t sound human.
All five brothers froze.
Arlo was the first to move.
“Ella?
What’s wrong?”
She couldn’t answer.
Her body was locking up, burning and freezing, something vast and furious slamming against the inside of her ribs like it wanted out.
Snow soaked through her jeans.
Her vision tunneled.
Atlas swore under his breath.
“She’s going into heat.
Out here.
Unshifted.” He looked at the others.
“We move.
Now.
Before every rogue in the Fracture scents her.”
Asher wrapped his bleeding arm in his hoodie sleeve, eyes hard.
“Or we leave her.
Let the Fracture finish what her stupid dormant wolf started.
Problem solves itself.”
“Shut up,” Axel growled.
First time he’d raised his voice.
He stepped between Asher and Ariella, broad back to her.
“We’re taking her home.”
Aiden looked sick.
“She’ll die if we leave her.”
Arlo dropped to his knees beside her, hands hovering like he was afraid to touch.
“I’ve got you.
Just hold on.
We’ll fix this.
I swear—”
“Don’t,” Ariella forced out between clenched teeth.
“Don’t swear on anything else you won’t keep.”
She tried to crawl.
Her arms gave out.
The last clear thought she had was that she had stood up in the pack house and told them exactly who they were.
Boots approached fast through the trees.
Not her brothers.
Different cadence, heavier.
The wind shifted and carried a new scent—wild, clean, and sharp with authority.
Ariella turned her head just enough to see a tall shape step into the thin moonlight.
Dark hair.
Storm-colored eyes.
Power rolled off him so thick it felt like pressure against her skin.
But just as the Alpha was about to talk, Ariella’s vision went white.
‘Not now’, she thought, but darkness pulled her under.