Water pulled her back. That current gave a second chance.
Down in the ravine, under brittle leaves and frost, flowed a thin rush of water heading west - swift, swollen from melted snow high up. Before spotting it, Sage caught its voice first. Through the hum stuck in her head, that trickle sliced clear.
Into it she rolled.
That cold hit like nothing before it. Her chest tightened suddenly, breath caught midair as if frozen solid. Blood turned sharp inside her veins, slow and icy. Six inches of melted snow became an ocean in those moments. Three seconds stretched - long enough to believe drowning could happen on dry land.
Water pulled her under next. She did not see it coming.
Water rushed fast though it stayed low, yet moved her broken form ahead without pause. Her face broke the surface just enough, still she floated where muscles failed to carry. The flow pulled onward while limbs lay useless behind.
Something moved at her back - the wolf had made it down the steep cut, landing heavy on loose stone. A low snuffling rose up, then footsteps turning wide, searching without surety. Her trace rode the current now, breaking apart where water slapped stone and soaked into mud along the edge.
Footprints in the stream could still be followed, though progress crept along. Each moment lost stretched longer than the last. With every pause, Sage slipped farther ahead of Crimson Howl.
Water stretched wider ahead. Down below, the floor dropped away beneath her toes. Swimming now - though not well - Sage kicked through the current, metal links clinking at her wrists, each pull of her arms sending sharp pain from cracked bones in her chest. Then silence, just breath and ripple.
A twist in the water spun her sideways. Around one curve, then another pulled her under its grip. Voices chasing lost their edge. Barking echoes thinned into silence.
Sage didn't stop.
Downstream she drifted, then crept, then pulled her body forward, unsure how long it took - perhaps sixty minutes, perhaps double that. Her mind slipped loose from seconds and hours because of the poison, the chill, the bleeding; moments stretched thin like old rubber bands, then snapped tight again without notice.
Out of the water at last, she stood dripping, lost to her surroundings. She did not recognize a single thing around her.
Water pulled her beyond where Crimson Howl once roamed. That fact settled fast - six years walking every border line taught her those edges well - yet none of it matched what lay ahead. Trees stood unlike any back home. These rose higher, bent and knotted, shaped by earth too thin to let them grow upright. Even breathing felt foreign now. Less sharp pine, more wet collapse. Damp rot underfoot, thick moss clinging, a heavy scent rising from old woods left untouched far too long.
The Deadlands.
Sage's stomach dropped.
Fog hangs thick in the stretch of land nobody claims. This place has no masters, only silence where pack rules fade into nothing. Outcasts arrive here when every other path ends. Banished wolves wander in until their legs give out. Danger moves quietly through these trees, home to those too broken or too fierce for any order. Even the biggest Alpha turns away rather than step foot inside.
Fleeing on trembling legs, Sage left behind the Northern Territory's fiercest pack moments before they meant to kill. One breath ahead of death, cold fear still clinging, he vanished into shadowed trees where their howls could not reach.
Foot down in a place she hadn't wanted. Not broken, just bent wrong.
Falling into place by the broken tree, she began counting what remained.
A sharp pain with each inhale. Her right side held two fractures - perhaps a third. Breathing was like drawing shards down the throat.
Burnt skin hung off her wrists. Silver cuffs clung tight, feeding poison into raw cuts. They glowed faintly, relentless. Each breath made the pain sharper. Movement came slow now - her fingers puffed and numb. Commands from her brain arrived late. Almost like they got lost on the way.
Bare feet. Torn apart. Across ice she sprinted first, then sharp stones scraped her heels, after that came the split earth of a narrow gorge. Her foot bottoms looked like raw meat left out too long.
Floating. That's how things looked after the drop - her left eyebrow split open, dried rust-colored streaks stuck to her skin. Maybe her brain got rattled too; hard to say. Everything wobbled at the edges like it might slide away.
Cold deep inside. Falling quick now. Clothes soaked, wind biting close to zero. A werewolf could freeze. More so if shifting stayed out of reach.
Wolf. Silent.
What she feared above all.
Inside," Sage murmured, hand brushing her chest. "Still awake?
Just silence. Even a soft sound never came.
Victory belonged to the wolfsbane. Her wolf lay still - perhaps fading. What occurs if a wolf's wild self perishes? Sage held no answers. Tales reached her ears once. Lose your feral half, they said, and you lose everything that matters. Alive, yes - yet gone like smoke through fingers. Silence inside where fire once roared.
That wasn't something she'd allow. Happening? Not on her watch.
Off came the silver - that had to happen now. With the cuffs still locked tight, wolfsbane seeped through her veins, eating at her strength. Her wolf stayed buried under poison, fading. Human meant fragile. Fragile meant time slipping away.
Fingers traced the metal edge. These restraints followed the usual Crimson Howl pattern: twin silver circles joined by hinges, secured with a basic pin-lock system. Getting free meant finding either a tool or the right key. Tools she didn't carry. Keys were nowhere near.
Yet she carried stones in her pockets.
A smooth stone with a rough side was what she picked up - maybe not proper, yet good for now. Over the broken tree trunk went her left hand, the metal band's pivot lined up where the stone pressed. Then came the hit, using a second rock swung hard.
The blow shook her cracked bones. A scream pressed into her teeth, copper filled her mouth, then she hit once more.
And again.
And again.
That time, on the fourteenth hit, the hinge pin broke apart.
A loose flap sagged at her wrist. The fabric gap widened without warning.
Right away she felt better - not fully healed, since wolfsbane stayed inside, yet the steady flow from touching silver dropped by fifty percent. Pain pulsed through her left wrist, sharp and hot, though now it moved without restraint.
Fingers shifted grip, then she began working the right sleeve.
This time it dragged on. Weaker than before, her left hand shook. Twice the rock skidded off, slicing into her arm. Then - on the twenty-first hit - the second shackle dropped loose.
Fingers trembling, Sage looked down at her bare wrists. Open sores coated in dark crust oozed a thin blend of plasma and red drops. Healing would leave deep lines behind. These wounds won't fade - they'll stay with her always.
Alright, she figured. Maybe now they'll bring it back to mind.
Inside herself she went once more. Just move already. Open your eyes
A spark. Just barely holding on, though - like light trying to survive wind. Still present.
A sound came from her throat - low, like the animal inside had just woken up.
Hours might pass. Perhaps even a full day or two before the wolfsbane left her body and her wolf could return. For now, Sage stayed locked in human form.
A person stands barefoot on cracked earth, empty hands at their sides. Night comes fast here, cold creeping from the ground up into bones. Boots vanished long ago, left behind somewhere past hope. A knife would help, yet there is none - only skin against stone. Hunger sits low, a quiet weight beneath the ribs. The wind moves like fingers through cloth, thin fabric offering nothing. Darkness pulls tighter, breath visible now, each one smaller than the last.
Crimson Howl would start hunting soon after. Not because they believed she'd vanished, but because Declan refused to see it that way. For him, letting go meant admitting weakness - something he never did. Anyone running loose with secrets had to be brought back. Fast. Quietly. So the hunters came. The most skilled ones available.
Sage needed to move.
Her legs straightened. A wobble followed. The rough bark steadied her grip.
Foot down. Another follows after. The third lands without hurry.
One step at a time, she pushed through pain that pulled back just as hard. Blood marked where her feet had been, smeared across frozen earth. Breathing felt like broken glass shifting beneath bone. What she saw kept shrinking, then suddenly stretching out again.
West she went. Why west? Hard to say. Could have been a hunch. Or simply that it pointed away from Crimson Howl.
Fog curled through the trees behind her.
Footsteps broke the silence, each step sharp on the still air. Not a bird called. Nothing moved the trees. Only a slow groan from far off limbs, bending like they meant to speak. Stillness held everything.
Time moved slow. Or maybe not. Hard to tell when minutes stretch like they got nothing else to do.
Her legs wouldn't hold her much longer. With the rush gone, pain moved in like a slow tide instead. Each step shrank a little more. Movement turned heavy. Shapes of trees melted into one smudge across her sight.
One step. Then another. But her legs wouldn't hold. Cold ground waiting below. Breath ragged, thin air biting. The forest floor - crushed ice under brittle leaves - would catch her whether she woke again or not.
Neither choice felt right to her.
Still, whether right or wrong, her left knee gave way.
Down she crashed, palms slamming into the ground, already wrecked. Every breath screamed - cracked bones, shredded skin, numb toes all shouting, each louder than the last, none willing to wait their turn.
Frozen earth pressed against Sage's knee under a sky without stars. Darkness pooled around like spilled ink. Cold bit through cloth and skin alike. A shadow among shadows, still but breathing.
Frozen still, she held back every tear.
Quiet stayed on her lips instead.
Frost clung to her skin as she lay still, one breath slipping out. The earth held its chill beneath her face, quiet, unmoving. Air crept in through her nose, slow, thin. Her body rested there, anchored by cold and silence both.
Breathe in. Then release. Pull air in again. Let it go once more.
Rise now, her mind whispered. On your feet, come on, move already. Up again, just do it.
On her back she stayed. Still. Not moving a muscle.
Finished, her body gave out.
A shadow stretched long where Sage Blackwood rested, breath slow beneath pine needles. Leader of the Crimson Howl Pack, they watched gaps in the treeline like cracks in old glass. Stillness held their body, yet eyes moved - tracking nothing, then everything.
This is how it finishes, she realized. Without an axe raised. Without any battle at all. Quietly, on the ground, by herself.
It hit her nose just then.
Smoke.
Fire, but not wild. Smoke rising slow, not from storm or accident. This came from hands building flame, from breath feeding coals. Beneath it all, another trace curled through air. Familiar. Sharp enough to pull at old instincts - a quiet pulse beneath skin.
Wolf.
A shape moved through the trees close by. This one didn't belong to the Crimson Howl. Their smell always carries order, but this trail reeked of open forest and no rules. Wildness clung thick to it, like fur soaked in storm air. A loner's mark, sharp and uninvited.
Rogue.
Maybe fear was expected. Yet rogues out past the border never followed rules. A few caused no trouble - loners asking only for space. But madness lived there too, born from being cut off, starved of connection.
Fear needed strength to survive, yet Sage held nothing behind.
Still on her back, she stayed quiet, eyes open, watching time pass without moving a muscle.
Out of the east, steps thudded. Slow. Certain. Not skulking. A presence that made no attempt to fade into silence.
Over by the edge, they came to a halt ten feet off.
A weight pressed down on Sage's neck. Those boots filled her view - huge, beaten up, crusted with dried mud. Stiff laces hung loose. Silence sat thick between each breath she took.
"Well," said a voice above her - deep, steady, almost amused. "That's a lot of blood for someone who's still breathing."
Footsteps echoed down the hall. Then silence fell like dust.
Stay quiet," came the voice. Footsteps drew near. Heat touched her skin - close, heavy, more intense than any beast should give off. Even among his kind, this one burned too much. Hurt deep, you are. Ribs cracked, silver in your blood, chill creeping into bone. Something made you flee
Not a question.
A shift in pressure turned Sage over. The hands were big, yet moved slow, almost tender.
She looked up.
A shape loomed above her, low and still. This wasn't merely large - it overflowed the space. Wide bones cut off the sky, limbs like tree trunks, a frame built as if force came easy. Features carved by impact: ridge of chin, crooked bridge of nose, gaze steady under shadow, unbothered by what lay before him.
Furrows marked the skin along his jawline where the old cut began. That slash traced downward from near the ear on one side. Dark stubble covered his scalp like storm clouds at dusk. The threadbare coat he wore hid the rest past its frayed edge.
Yet the smell of him pulled at Sage's wolf, deeper than before.
Pine fills the air. Underfoot, earth gives softly. Wisps of woodsmoke curl through the stillness. Beneath everything hums a warmth so quiet it pulls at her ribs.
Alpha.
This one carried himself like a leader. Clearly - no question about it - a true pack head. Power poured out of his stance, thick enough that Sage sensed it despite the bitter scent fogging her mind.
Alpha Alone in the Deadlands?
"I'm going to pick you up," the wolf said. "If you've got enough fight left in you to object, now's the time."
Sage didn't object.
She couldn't.
A whisper of movement, then he rose with her cradled close - arms locked beneath her legs and along her spine. Her head swayed, coming to rest on him. The sound found her ears before anything else: thud… thud… thud… deep, firm, unshaken.
"I've got a camp half a mile from here," he said, already walking. "Fire, food, a first aid kit. Nothing fancy, but it'll keep you alive."
Focusing felt hard. "Who..." came out slow.
"Name's Rhett," the Alpha said. "And before you ask - no, I'm not going to hurt you. You've clearly had enough of that for one night."
A sudden pull brought her close, his arms locking behind her back. Not claiming, just holding firm against the chill that crept through the air.
A shiver ran through Sage when the wolf moved, weak as it was. Though its body bore wounds and poison slowed its breath, a pulse leapt between them suddenly. This feeling - foreign, raw - had no name. It simply arrived. Not gentle, not loud. Just there.
She purred.
A sound rises - not fierce, not afraid. Soft instead. It hums beneath the ribs without warning. This noise belongs to no thought, only bone-deep reflex.
It was unclear to Sage just what it meant.
A pause in Rhett's breath, brief but sharp, told her everything. Though only a flicker passed across his face, it gave him away. The silence between them stretched thinner than before. Something shifted behind his eyes - small yet certain. She saw it even if he meant to hide.