The Debt That Bites

The summons came at dusk, carried on the throat of a gray wolf who materialized from the treeline like smoke. You knew the ritual—had known it since childhood, when your grandmother taught you the old laws over a fire that smelled of pine and iron. A life-debt, she'd said, is heavier than any chain. You'd laughed then, young and foolish, not knowing the weight would one day settle across your shoulders like a mantle of stone.

Now the blood moon bled through the canopy, and the pack's territory stretched before you like a wound. Elder Marik stood at the clearing's edge, his fur silvered with age, his eyes ancient and unblinking. Behind him, the Alpha's Second—a wolf named Soren—paced with barely contained violence.

"The debt," Marik said, his voice a rasp of old bones. "The night has come."

You didn't flinch. You'd spent years learning not to.

"Kill the exile," Soren growled, stepping closer. "Or die trying. Those are the terms."

The wind shifted, carrying a scent you knew—wild, familiar, achingly close. The exile. The one who'd dragged you from a frozen river when you were fifteen, who'd pressed warmth into your shivering body while the pack hunted him for crimes you never believed.

Your hand drifted to the blade at your hip. The blade he'd given you.