SOPHIE POV
The training ground is brutal in the morning light.
I've been sparring with Kai for two hours and my body is screaming, but I don't stop. I can't stop. Every punch I land feels like I'm reclaiming a piece of myself. Every move Kai teaches me feels like I'm building armor against the world.
Kai is massive and he barely breaks a sweat while I'm bleeding from a cut on my forehead and breathing like I've run a marathon.
"Again," I say.
"You're exhausted," Kai says, but he gets into stance anyway.
I throw a combination that's too slow. Kai sidesteps and grabs my arm, pulling me off balance. I go down hard on my back and the air gets knocked out of me.
"Better," he says, extending his hand to help me up. "Your instinct was right, your execution was sloppy. When you're tired, that's when warriors die."
I take his hand and he pulls me up.
"You're different than Thomas's warriors," I say, breathing hard. "You actually teach instead of just beating people down."
"That's because we fight to survive, not to dominate," Kai says. "Ryker learned that from his father. You conquer territory through strength, but you keep it through loyalty. And you build loyalty through respect."
A female warrior runs up to us, breathless.
"Kai, there's a situation. We found Kyle Morrison sneaking around the eastern border."
My stomach drops.
Kyle Morrison is from the Moonstone Pack. He was one of Thomas's warriors. And according to Chapter 5 in my outline that I'm following, he's supposed to be working with Eleanor to sabotage Ryker and me.
"What was he doing?" Kai asks, his expression immediately serious.
"Trying to cross into our territory. He says he has information about Eleanor Gray's escape plans. He says he needs to speak to Sophie specifically."
Kai and I exchange a look.
"Don't let him come near her," Kai says flatly. "Lock him in the holding area. I'll get Ryker."
But I'm already moving toward the holding area. I need to know what Kyle wants. I need to understand what's happening.
Kyle is in a stone room with no windows, guarded by two massive warriors. He's younger than I remember, maybe twenty-six, and his face is bruised like someone hit him. When he sees me, his expression changes to something like relief mixed with desperation.
"Sophie," he says, "thank god. I've been trying to reach you. I need to tell you something before Eleanor's plan goes too far."
"Start talking," I say, and my voice is colder than I expect.
Kyle looks at the guards and then back at me.
"I was helping Eleanor," he says. "I was supposed to drive a wedge between you and Ryker. I was supposed to make you doubt the bond and make you think Ryker was using you for war. I was supposed to get you to leave him so the pack would fall apart."
Every word is a knife.
I'd already suspected Kyle was involved in the lies from Chapter 5, but hearing him admit it hits different. He was my friend. Not close, but someone I knew since childhood. Someone I trained with.
"Why are you telling me this?" I ask.
"Because Eleanor's plan didn't work," Kyle says urgently. "And now she's escalating. She's not trying to separate you from Ryker anymore. She's trying to destroy the entire Ironwood Pack from the inside."
"How?" I ask.
"She has someone," Kyle says. "Someone in Ryker's pack. Someone close to him. Someone he trusts. She's been feeding them information and paying them to sabotage the pack's resources, spread rumors, weaken the warriors' confidence. By the time Eleanor comes back with a full army, the Ironwood Pack will be too broken to fight."
Kai appears in the doorway and his expression is thunderous.
"Who?" he demands. "Who in this pack is working with Eleanor?"
"I don't know," Kyle says, and he sounds genuinely terrified. "That was the whole point. Eleanor kept it secret so none of us could expose her. But Sophie, it's someone important. Someone Ryker confides in."
My blood runs cold.
"How do you know it's important?" I ask.
"Because Eleanor said so," Kyle says. "She said the traitor would have access to Ryker's plans, his strategies, his movements. She said that person would be able to tell her exactly what the Ironwood Pack is doing at all times."
Ryker appears in the doorway beside Kai. His expression is controlled but his eyes are pure rage.
"Did you bring Eleanor here?" Ryker demands. "Did you come to finish what you started?"
"No," Kyle says, and he stands up to face Ryker even though it's clearly terrifying. "I came to stop her. Because I realized what I was doing was wrong. Because I watched Sophie choose herself over safety and I realized I've been helping the wrong side."
"Why should we believe you?" Kai asks.
"Because I'm giving you information that destroys my own credibility with Eleanor," Kyle says. "If she finds out I told you about the traitor, she'll kill me. So either you kill me now or you help me disappear far enough that Eleanor can't find me. Those are my only options."
Ryker looks at me like he's asking what I want to do.
"Let him go," I say. "Give him supplies and send him far away. But first, you need to tell us everything you know about Eleanor's plans."
Kyle spends the next hour telling us everything. Eleanor's connections to rogue packs outside our territory. Her plan to gather an army of rogues and attack again within months. Her list of people she contacted inside the Ironwood Pack, though she never revealed who actually took the deal.
By the time he's finished, I feel sick.
"Who could it be?" I ask Kai as we walk with Kyle to the border to send him away.
"Anyone," Kai says grimly. "That's the problem. Eleanor chose well. She picked someone close enough to Ryker to matter, but not so obvious that we'd suspect them immediately."
We watch Kyle disappear into the forest. Once he's gone, Kai turns to me.
"You need to stay close to Ryker," Kai says. "Watch who he trusts. Watch who he confides in. Watch for someone who suddenly has more information than they should have."
"That could be anyone in this pack," I say.
"Exactly," Kai says. "Which means we have to be careful about who we tell about the traitor. If Eleanor's person finds out we know about them, they'll warn Eleanor and disappear."
We get back to the pack house and Ryker is waiting for me in his office. Papers are spread across his desk. Maps. Plans. Strategies.
"We need to figure out who the traitor is," he says without preamble. "Before Eleanor's army arrives."
"I know," I say. "But we have to be careful. If we start investigating openly, the traitor will know we're looking and they'll run."
Ryker runs his hand through his hair, frustrated. "So what do we do? Wait and hope we figure it out before Eleanor attacks again?"
"No," I say. "We set a trap. We leak information about a weak point in our territory. We see who Eleanor reacts to. We wait for the traitor to make a move."
Ryker looks at me like I've surprised him.
"That could work," he says. "But it also puts us at risk. If the traitor believes the information and acts on it, we could lose warriors."
"Then we make the information seem real but not actually dangerous," I say. "We tell a select group of people about a fictional shipment of supplies arriving at a specific location. We see who Eleanor targets. We move faster than she expects."
Ryker walks around his desk and pulls me close. The mate bond thrums between us and for a moment, I forget about traitors and Eleanor and everything except the fact that he's here and he's alive and he trusts me.
"You're brilliant," he says. "Has anyone told you that?"
"Not before today," I say. "Thomas just told me I was weak."
"Thomas was an idiot," Ryker says. "I'm going to set up the trap. But Sophie, I need you to promise me something."
"What?"
"If things go wrong, if the traitor is someone I trust deeply, I need you to tell me the truth even if it destroys me. I need you to not protect my feelings."
"I promise," I say.
We spend the rest of the day setting the trap. We tell specific people about a shipment of weapons arriving at the northern border. Each person who's told gets a slightly different arrival time, so we can narrow down who the traitor is based on when Eleanor reacts.
That night, I sleep in Ryker's bed with his arms around me. The mate bond is strong and steady and for the first time since I bonded with him, it feels like home instead of a cage.
But I can't stop thinking about the traitor. Someone in this pack is working against us. Someone is feeding information to Eleanor. And I have no idea who.
Three days pass.
Nothing happens with the fake shipment. Eleanor doesn't attack. The traitor doesn't make a move.
On the fourth day, Kai comes to find me looking absolutely devastated.
"What happened?" I ask immediately.
"We got a message," Kai says. "From Eleanor. She knows about the trap. She knows we're looking for her person. And she's made her move."
"What move?"
Kai hands me a letter.
It's sealed with Eleanor's mark and it's addressed to me. I open it slowly, terrified of what it contains.
The message is short and cuts right to the heart of everything I fear.
"My Dear Sophie,
I know you're looking for the traitor in Ryker's pack. I know you think you're clever enough to catch them. But you're going to fail.
Because the traitor isn't trying to help me destroy the pack from the inside.
The traitor is trying to destroy you from the inside.
And by the time you realize what's happening, Ryker will be forced to choose between his pack and his mate.
He'll choose his pack.
They always do.
Yours in victory, Eleanor Gray"
I read the letter three times.
And then I realize something that makes my blood run cold.
Eleanor isn't trying to weaken the Ironwood Pack anymore. She's trying to create a situation where Ryker has to choose between protecting me and protecting his pack. She's trying to make the mate bond a liability instead of a strength.
She's trying to tear us apart.
"We need to tell Ryker," I say.
But before Kai can respond, there's a commotion from the training grounds.
Screaming. Not pain screaming. Fear screaming.
We run toward the sound and find warriors gathering around something in horror.
A body.
One of Ryker's longest-serving warriors is lying on the training ground with a symbol carved into his chest. Eleanor's symbol.
And next to his body is a note.
"For every day you don't surrender Sophie Wells to me, another warrior dies. The choice is yours, Ryker. Your pack or your mate.
Let's see what you really love."