“It’s…
it’s true,” Titus whispered, his face pale.
“She is a Primal,” Atlas breathed, his voice a mixture of horror and awe.
Grimshaw moved instantly.
He stepped into the light, his Void exploding outward in a violent, protective burst that neutralized the silver glow.
He pulled Ariella against him, his arm a crushing band around her waist.
“The evaluation is over,” Grimshaw roared, his black eyes fixed on Titus.
“Get out.”
“Grimshaw, you cannot keep her!” Titus shouted, backing away toward the transports.
“The Council will convene!
She is a Sovereign entity!
She belongs to the North!”
“She belongs to me!
She.
Is.
My.
Wife!”
The roar was so powerful that the stone walls of the courtyard seemed to groan.
The Council Enforcers scrambled into their vehicles, the convoy roaring out of the gates as if the devil himself were chasing them.
An hour later, Ariella had slipped away from the master suite.
Grimshaw was in his private office with Silas and Juno, his Gamma, and the pack was in a state of high alert.
She needed to know about the Ash-Walker.
If she was a Primal, was he the one the legends spoke of?
The Shadow that followed the Light?
Did that make her a rogue?
She thought.
She found herself in the deep archives, a place of dust and forgotten peters.
“You shouldn’t be down here, little wolf.”
Ariella spun around.
A woman stood in the shadows.
She was middle-aged, her face scarred by what looked like wolf-claws, her eyes a sharp, intelligent green.
This was Nyx, the Sanctuary’s poisoner (though Ariella only knew her as a librarian).
“I’m looking for the Ash-Walker,” Ariella said, her hand on her knife.
Nyx let out a low, dry chuckle.
“The Rogue?
You’re a few decades late, child.
The Ash-Walker died during the Great Pack Collapse.
The mask you saw…
it was likely a scavenger wearing his skin.
A man named Lukan.”
“Lukan?”
“A rogue Alpha who preys on the Fracture,” Nyx said, leaning against a shelf.
“He uses the legend to scare people.
He’s a butcher, Ariella.
If he saved you, it was only because he wanted to sell you for a higher price than your father did.”
Ariella felt a cold weight in her stomach.
“No.
The man I saw…
he didn’t feel like a butcher.” Then, a different thought struck her.
“Nyx, what exactly is a Primal Wolf?”
Nyx’s green eyes narrowed slightly, a hint of something unreadable flickering within them.
“Decades ago, they were considered feral wolves.
Rogue wolves with too much power and too little restraint. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
If their instincts weren’t properly tamed, they could eventually lose themselves completely.”
Ariella swallowed.
“Go mad?”
“Some did.” Nyx’s voice lowered.
“A Primal’s wolf isn’t like an ordinary wolf.
It’s stronger.
Hungrier.
More instinctive.
The human and wolf can become difficult to separate when emotions run high.”
Ariella remembered the thing inside her.
The low growl that didn’t seem like a wolf.
The way it had felt almost pleased by the chaos.
“So they were dangerous.”
“Extremely.”
“Then why haven’t I heard about them?”
“Because the Council made certain nobody would.”
Ariella frowned.
Nyx walked toward one of the older shelves, running her fingers across the dusty spines.
“Most records were destroyed.
The few that survived were hidden because Primal wolves became hunted creatures.
People feared them more than they respected them.”
Ariella’s voice dropped.
“Were there female primals?”
Nyx glanced back at her.
“Very few.
Reports from a century ago recorded only ten.”
Ariella’s eyes widened.
“Ten women?”
“Ten confirmed cases.” Nyx nodded.
“And even those records are questionable.
Some disappeared.
Some were killed.
Others were simply erased from history.”
Ariella stared at her.
“Why?”
Nyx’s mouth tightened.
“Because a powerful woman is already difficult enough for men to control.
Give her a Primal wolf, and suddenly she becomes something they cannot command.”
Ariella’s stomach twisted.
She thought of her family.
Of every time they had called her Dilution.
Every time they had looked at her like she was defective because she couldn’t shift.
“What happens if a Primal isn’t controlled?”
Nyx gave her a strange look.
“They don’t need to be controlled.”
“Then what do they need?”
Nyx’s gaze lingered on her for a moment.
“Someone who can bring them back.”
Ariella’s heartbeat stumbled.
“Someone?”
“A mate, sometimes.
Someone their wolf recognizes as safe.” Nyx’s voice became quieter.
“The bond can act like an anchor.”
Ariella immediately thought of Grimshaw.
The way his breathing had changed whenever she touched him.
She pushed the thought away.
Nyx watched her carefully.
“Interesting, isn’t it?”
Ariella looked at her.
“What is?”
“How quickly you thought of him.”
Ariella’s face heated.
“I didn’t.”
Nyx smiled.
“You didn’t have to say it.”
Ariella looked away, suddenly very interested in the dusty book beneath her fingers.
But the thought had already taken root.
If she was a Primal…then what exactly was Grimshaw to her?
And why did some part of her already know the answer?
Ariella’s mind raced, trying to process this new information.
“So, if I’m a Primal, does that make me a rogue?
Like the Ash-Walker?”
“A mask hides many things, child,” Nyx said, walking away, ignoring Ariella’s last question.
“But it doesn’t hide a man’s soul.
If you want to find ‘The Ash,’ look for the blood he leaves behind.
Not the copper wires.”
Ariella stood in the dark, the black feather in her pocket feeling like a lie.
Lukan.
A scavenger.
A common rogue playing dress-up.
The mystery felt smaller.
Dirtier even.
And the revelation about Primal wolves only deepened her confusion, making her feel even more isolated in her own skin.
Grimshaw’s POV – The Tactical Room
Grimshaw watched the archive feed on the monitor.
He saw Nyx deliver the lie.
He saw the light fade from Ariella’s eyes as she believed it.
“It was a good move, Silas,” Grimshaw said, his voice a low, rough rasp.
“She was getting too close, Alpha,” Silas said, standing behind him.
“If she thinks the Ash-Walker is a common criminal named Lukan, she’ll stop looking for you.
Like that, she won’t be able to find the Sanctuary.”
“She’ll hate him,” Grimshaw said, his fingers tracing the scar on his neck.
“Better she hates a ghost than finds the truth before you’re ready to tell it,” Silas replied.
Grimshaw looked at the screen, at Ariella’s lonely figure in the archives.
His heart ached with a possessiveness that was becoming a physical illness.
He was the one who had saved her.
He was the one who had left the feather.
And now, he was the one who had convinced her that his other self was a monster.
“Prepare the perimeter,” Grimshaw said, his eyes turning back to the map.
“Vane and his cronies are moseying on over.
The Council is spooked.
And my wife…
my wife is about to become the center of a war she isn’t ready for.”
He looked at the obsidian mask hidden in a lead-lined safe beneath his desk.
“Forgive me, Ariella,” he whispered.
“But the Ash has to stay in the dark.
For now.”