Mira's POV
The dark swallowed her whole.
One second she was through the gate. The next, she couldn't see her own hands. The blackness was total, thick and heavy, like the forest had closed its eyes around her and decided not to open them again.
Then the screaming started.
It came from everywhere, behind her, to her left, somewhere far ahead. Human screams, sharp and raw, cutting through the silence like knives. And underneath them, something else. A sound that made every hair on Mira's body stand up.
Growling.
Low. Rumbling. Close.
Mira ran.
She didn't think about it. Her body decided before her brain caught up, legs moving, arms pumping, feet crashing through dead leaves and roots she couldn't see. Around her, the other candidates were doing the same thing. Fifty people, all scattering like mice when the light comes on.
But Mira was the only mouse.
She heard it within the first minute. The others were changing. A wet, cracking sound, bones reshaping, bodies growing and then the forest was full of wolves. Massive, fast, moving through the dark like they were born in it.
Because they were.
Mira's legs were pathetically slow by comparison. A wolf blew past her in a blur of dark fur and hot breath, not even looking at her. It was chasing someone else. Someone it had already chosen.
That was the first thing she noticed.
The wolves weren't attacking everyone. They were picking.
A girl to Mira's right, small, shaking, barely moving was ignored completely. Two wolves ran right past her without a second glance. But a tall, confident boy who'd shifted into a grey wolf and was sprinting ahead? Three wolves broke off and went after him.
They weren't hunting the weak.
They were hunting the ones who thought they were strong.
Mira filed that away and kept running.
The forest was designed to kill her.
She figured that out ten minutes in. Every path that looked open led somewhere worse. Every clearing funneled back into tighter spaces. The ground dropped without warning, sudden ditches, hidden roots, one place where the earth just fell away into nothing.
The wolves weren't chasing her. They were herding her.
Pushing. Guiding. Moving her, and every other candidate toward the same dark, narrow places. Like they wanted them cornered.
Like that was the point.
Mira's lungs burned. Her legs were screaming. She'd been running for what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes. Ahead of her, the trees were getting closer together, the path tighter, the ground steeper.
She was being pushed toward something.
And then she hit the cliff.
It wasn't dramatic. There was no warning. One second she was running downhill. The next, the ground ended. A wall of black rock rose in front of her, too high to climb, too steep to find a way around. A dead end.
A trap.
Mira spun around, breathing hard, back pressed against the cold stone.
The wolf was already there.
Massive. Black as the dark it had come from. Bigger than any wolf had a right to be shoulders like a small car, eyes that caught what little moonlight filtered through the trees and turned them into two burning points of amber.
It stepped forward. Slowly. Deliberately.
No rush. It already knew she had nowhere to go.
Mira's heart was hammering so hard she could feel it in her teeth. She had nothing. No powers. No weapon. No shift. No plan.
The wolf lowered its head. A growl rolled out of its chest, deep, amused almost, like it was enjoying this.
It lunged.
Mira moved.
She didn't jump. She didn't scream. She dropped threw her body sideways, low and fast, and the wolf's jaws snapped shut on air where her head had been a half-second before.
Her hand hit something on the ground. A branch. Thick, broken clean, the end sharp as a blade.
She didn't think. She drove it forward with everything she had.
The branch punched into the wolf's shoulder.
The animal yelped, a sharp, surprised sound and stumbled back, shaking its head, looking at her like she'd done something it genuinely hadn't expected.
Mira was on her feet. Blood was running down her arm from a cut she hadn't felt. Her chest was heaving. The branch was still in her fist, slick and dark.
And something had shifted inside her. Something small and hard and furious, like a match someone had finally struck.
I'm not prey, she said.
Her voice came out low. Steady. Colder than she'd ever heard it.
The wolf stared at her.
Then it sat down.
Not retreating. Not scared. It sat, tilted its head, and for a moment it looked almost entertained.
The air rippled.
The shift was fast faster than Mira had seen from anyone else. The black fur receded. The body shrunk, reshaped, reformed. And where the wolf had been, a young man was crouching on the ground, one hand pressed to his bleeding shoulder where the branch had gone in.
He was lean. Scarred badly, visibly, three long marks running down the left side of his face like something had tried to take his jaw off years ago. Dark hair, messy and wild. And he was grinning.
Actually grinning. With blood running between his fingers and a puncture wound in his shoulder, he was looking at Mira like she'd just handed him a gift.
Well, he said. His voice was rough. Warm. Almost laughing. That's the first time anyone's actually stabbed me.
He pulled the branch out with a grunt, tossed it aside, and stood up. He was tall taller than her by a lot, and moved like someone who'd fought his whole life and enjoyed every second of it.
You've got spirit, little human. He rolled his injured shoulder, testing it. Blood soaked into his shirt, but he didn't seem to care. I like you.
He turned his head sharply, scanning the dark around them and then whistled. One sharp, clear note that cut through the forest like a blade.
This one's mine, he said, loud enough for the trees to hear it. Loud enough for anything else in the dark to hear it. His voice had changed the warmth was still there, but underneath it was something iron. Something that said this is not a suggestion. Anyone touches her, you answer to me.
Silence.
The forest held its breath.
And then, from the shadows behind Mira not from where the black wolf had come, but from somewhere deeper, somewhere further two points of silver light appeared.
Eyes.
Not amber. Not warm. Cold silver, bright as moonlight, completely still. Watching.
They had been there the whole time.
Mira felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. Something about those eyes made the mark on her palm flare hot, sudden, sharp, like it had been slapped awake.
The silver eyes moved. Closer. And a voice came with them low, deep, carrying the kind of weight that made the ground feel like it should shake.
She's not yours, Ironclaw.
Zane's grin didn't disappear. But something behind it changed sharpened. His body shifted, barely visible, into something ready.
The silver eyes stepped forward. Out of the dark. Into the thin strip of moonlight where Mira could finally see the shape attached to them.
He was tall. Broader than Zane. Moved like gravity obeyed him. Silver-white hair that caught the light like it was made of it. And his face beautiful and ruthless in a way that made Mira's stomach drop, because beautiful things with faces like that were never safe.
His silver eyes didn't look at Zane.
They looked at Mira.
And the voice came again, quiet now, meant only for her but it carried like a command meant for the whole world.
She's mine.