Chapter 11 · Red Moon Trial

The tunnel smells like old blood and wet stone. I'm already bleeding before we even start.

Cain's got my wrist in his hand, thumb pressed over the cut he just made with his own claw. The bond's humming between us, hot and sick, like it knows what's coming. Behind us the council chamber door slams shut. We're under the packhouse now. Just the two of us and whatever the hell he thinks I can do.

"You said you needed proof," he says. His voice is flat. Alpha tone, the kind that used to make me drop my eyes. "This is it."

I yank my hand back. Blood drips onto the stone floor, black in the low light. "Proof of what? That you can drag me underground and make me bleed?"

"Proof that the bond works both ways." He's not looking at me. He's looking at the tunnel ahead, where the dark goes so deep I can't see the end. "The northern packs are moving through the old mine system. We collapsed most of it twenty years ago but they're digging it back open. If we can seal it from below, we buy time.