Chapter 217
I exhaled shakily and leaned my head back against the seat, the vinyl cold against my skin.
Ben watched me carefully. “She didn’t pull you.”
“No,” I said. “She chose.”
His grip tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles whitening. “Ezra’s not going to like that.”
“He never does,” I said quietly.
We drove in silence for several miles, the road gradually widening as we left the deepest forest behind. Dawn strengthened, color creeping back into the world in cautious shades. Ben took a turn down a gravel lane that led toward an abandoned service area. Rusted signs leaned at odd angles. Weeds swallowed cracked asphalt, reclaiming what had been left behind.
We parked behind a derelict storage building and shut the engine off.
The sudden quiet pressed in, heavy and almost uncomfortable after hours of motion.
“This car won’t last much longer,” Ben said. “But it’ll get us to the edge of neutral territory.”
I nodded, staring out at the pale sky. “Then we switch again.”
He studied me for a long moment. “You haven’t said anything since the council.”
“I was listening.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I turned to face him. His expression was tight, eyes dark with something heavier
than fear. Guilt. Responsibility. The weight of choices he could not undo.
“I dragged you into this,” he said. “If I hadn’t recognized them. If I hadn’t said anything.”
I shook my head immediately. “Stop.”
“Savannah,” he insisted. “This was my pack. My Alpha. My mess.”
“And my choice,” I said. My voice did not waver. “I was already on Silvermen’s radar.
He would have come for me whether you were here or not.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“No,” I agreed. “But it makes it real.”
I looked down at my hands, still faintly trembling now that the danger had eased
enough for my body to feel it. “Do you know what the worst part is?”
Ben waited, giving me the space to say it.
“It’s not being hunted,” I said. “It’s knowing they understand exactly how I think. How
I move. Hunters were different. Predictable. These wolves know what fear smells
like. They know how to use it.”
His jaw tightened. “And that scares you.”
“Yes,” I said softly. “Because it means part of me understands them too.”
Ben reached out, resting his forearm against the center console, close but not touching, a silent offer of support. “You’re not them.”
“I know,” I said. “But this is the first time I’ve been hunted by my own kind.”
The truth of it settled heavily between us, unspoken but absolute.
After a moment, I straightened, resolve knitting itself together inside me. “Silvermen wants control.
Narrative if he cant erase me quietly, he’ll do it publicly.”
As if summoned by the thought, my phone vibrated.
Once.
Then again.
A pack-wide alert, not from Morgan.
From Silvermen.
My stomach dropped.
I opened it.
His voice poured out over the speaker, amplified and formal, carrying the weight of authority meant to crush dissent and rally obedience.
“Wolves of my pack,” Silvermen said. “It has come to my attention that Savannah has conspired with
outside Alphas to undermine on et
stability. She has attacked loyal warriors and spread lies meant to fracture our unity.”
My blood went cold.
“Let it be known,” he continued, “that Savannah is henceforth declared a traitor to
pack order. Any wolf who aids her shares her fate.”
Ben swore under his breath.
Silvermen’s tone sharpened, righteous and practiced. “We do not tolerate betrayal. We eliminate it.”
The message ended.
Silence filled the car, thick and suffocating.
I stared at the blank screen, my reflection faint and unfamiliar, like was looking at someone who had already crossed a line she could never step back over.
“There it is,” Ben said quietly. “He made the first public move.”
I closed my eyes, steadying my breath, letting my wolf rise just enough to anchor
me, to remind me who I was beneath the fear and the fury.
“He wanted to define me,” I said. “Before Morgan could.”
Ben met my gaze. “And now?”
I looked out toward the road leading to neutral territory, to uncertainty, to a future I
had not planned but would not run from.
“Now,” I said, voice firm, “I finish what he started.”
Somewhere far away, I knew Silvermen believed he had drawn the line.
He was wrong.
He had only shown me where to cross it.