Warmth first. Not the sun — something closer. Softer.
Then a scent that his wolf recognized before the rest of him did.
Then her voice. Low and hushed. Not calling his name, just present. Speaking to someone else.
He opened his eyes and it was all dark and unclear. He blinked. The treeline came back first, silhouettes against the night sky.
"You're awake." He heard her exhale.
The sky above the training ground had changed. The light was gone, and in its place was the dark of the night and shadows cast by moonlinght, the day having moved on without him. He was still on the ground, still on his stomach.
He turned his head.
Iphe knelt beside him, a dampened cloth in her hand, and her eyes on his back. Her hands moved with practiced calm, but her breath trembled each time his skin flinched beneath her touch. Beside her, Mira crouched with a small kit open on the earth, her eyes moving between his back, Iphe and the gap in the pines, her fingers trembling each time the wind stirred the trees.
He tried to push himself up.
"Don't." Iphe's hand pressed gently but firmly to his shoulder.
"You shouldn't be here." His voice came out hoarse and rough.
"Stay still. If you move, you'll tear the clot." She didn't move her hand. "You've lost a lot of blood." She continued cleaning his wounds with the damp cloth, wiping as gently as she could. "This is water from the waterfall. Mira said it'll significantly help you feel better. How are you feeling?"
He looked at Mira, and though she kept her gaze fixed on the entrance to the training ground, his eyes held a quiet gratitude.
"You need to leave."
"When I'm done." She paused, her hands still moving. "Jax forbade anyone from coming in here until tomorrow. We had to wait." Her voice stayed calm but her fingers tightened around the cloth. "You were out here all day."
"And you came in anyway?" His head snapped toward her.
"Yes, I did."
"And you let her?" He looked straight at Mira.
This time she looked at him. "She was going to go ask Jax for permission to come in here."
"You both need to leave here. Now." He tried to push himself up again. His arms held for half a second before they didn't, and he went back down.
She caught him before he finished falling, her hand at his arm, steadying him without thinking about it. "We brought food. You would eat and we would leave, okay?"
He looked at her. Her eyes held the calm certainty of resolve, and beneath it lingered something he couldn't explain.
He looked at Mira again. She was no longer looking at him. He could see her fingers trembling from where he lay on the ground.
"Mira."
She turned. Her eyes found his and immediately went to the ground.
""Has she heard?"
Silence.
"Mira." He called her again. Quiter. "Has my mum heard?"
She shook her head. A single, small movement with her eyes still down.
He exhaled slowly. "Thank you."
The words came out barely above a breath. Mira nodded without looking up, her hands moving back to the kit, sorting through it with more attention than needed.
The three of them stayed in the quiet for a moment. The waterfall was audible from here, faint and distant. The pines were still.
He watched her move to the food, unpacking it with the same quiet focus she brought to everything. She set each item down with the kind of deliberate order that made even a clearing in the dark look like something she had scheduled.
He had seen her manage crises at every gathering with this same composure, controlled efficiency, and confidence. Like she was a queen in a world that not even the monstrosity called Luna Estate could topple over.
He did not know what to do with this version of her. The one that had waited all day and came in anyway. The one whose hands moved slowly and carefully as they cleaned his wounds. His forbidden mate.
He looked away, snuffing out the warmth spreading in his chest, and lay still as he breathed and let the healing run its course.
It was only then he noticed the quiet. Not the clearing, not the pines. The quiet inside.
He turned inward and found his wolf collapsed. It was there, but barely. Breathing slow and shallow, its presence reduced to something faint and distant. It had taken the worst of the lashes for him. It always did. But this time it had cost it more than usual, and it had gone somewhere deep to recover, leaving him more alone inside his own body than he was used to.
"I'm going to try to —"
"Shhh." Iphe started speaking, but Mira cut her off.
Her hands froze on the kit, and her eyes remained fixated on the gap.
Alaric looked at her, then turned to look at the gap in the pines too.
The trees were motionless. The path beyond them was empty.
But something wasn't right.
"Run." His voice came out low and urgent, the weakness in his body and the authority in his voice belonging to two entirely different people. His eyes stayed on the gap. "Both of you. Run. Now."