The storm arrives after midnight.

Snow crashes against Black Hollow's cliffs hard enough to swallow the watchtowers whole. Wind screams through the mountain passes like something alive.

Most of the territory locks its gates before dawn. Anastasia waits for exactly that.

People notice departures less during storms.

She moves quietly through the dark infirmary, gathering what little still belongs to her.

A gray traveling cloak. Her mother's silver ring. Dried herbs wrapped in cloth. Three healing knives. The old map hidden beneath the floorboards since childhood.

Not much else. Almost everything she owns comes from Black Hollow. She leaves most of it behind on purpose.

The room feels unfamiliar now anyway, like sleeping inside somebody else's tragedy.

Anastasia pauses briefly beside the small mirror near the door. The woman staring back barely looks alive.

Pale skin. Silver fractures faint beneath her throat. Dark circles hollow under exhausted eyes.

And silence. Still no wolf.

The emptiness behind her ribs remains unbearable, but she forces herself to move anyway. Survival first. Collapse later.

The palace corridors stay mostly empty this late at night. Only torchlight flickers against the stone walls while distant guards rotate shifts near the outer gates.

Anastasia keeps her head lowered. Nobody stops her.

Nobody expects the broken girl to leave.

Outside, the storm slams into her immediately. Snow bites across her face hard enough to sting, and the cold nearly drops her to her knees at once.

Her body still weakens from the backlash. Every step hurts.

Good. Pain means she keeps moving.

She pulls the hood lower and disappears into the storm. Behind her, Black Hollow glows faintly through the snow and darkness—the only home she ever knows, the only place she ever begs to be loved.

She never looks back.

Hours later, Kaelen wakes choking.

The phantom crying drags him violently out of sleep again. Except this time, something feels wrong. Different.

The damaged bond pulses frantically beneath his ribs. Not pain—distance.

Kaelen sits upright instantly while snow hammers the palace windows. His wolf surges awake violently inside him.

Find her.

The command hits hard enough to make his head pound.

Kaelen throws on clothes without bothering with boots properly—a half-buttoned black shirt, wet hair falling into sharp gray eyes.

The crying inside the bond keeps fading in and out now, further away. His chest tightens immediately. No.

He crosses the palace corridors fast enough to terrify the guards. One servant stammers, "Your Majesty—"

"Where is Anastasia?"

The servant freezes. "I-I thought she was still in the infirmary."

Kaelen is already moving before she finishes speaking. The bond twists harder the closer he gets.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

He shoves open the infirmary doors hard enough to crack wood.

The room stands empty. One candle burns low beside the bed. Cold blankets. Open drawers. The window slightly cracked from the wind pressure.

Kaelen stops breathing. No.

His wolf explodes. A savage growl tears through the room as the bond slams into full panic for the first time.

Mine. Gone. FIND HER.

Kaelen grabs the edge of the bed so hard the wood splinters apart beneath his hands. The room still smells faintly like Anastasia—moonroot, snow, blood—but underneath, the scent fades already. Leaving.

The realization detonates inside him.

Kaelen storms through the room, searching violently now. 

His breathing turns ragged. The phantom crying vanishes completely from the bond, and that terrifies him most.

"ALPHA—"

Several guards rush into the infirmary. Too late.

Kaelen spins toward them, his silver eyes burning completely feral now. "WHEN."

Nobody answers fast enough. The wolf takes over.

Pain rips visibly through Kaelen's body as the forced shift hits without warning. Bones crack violently, making the guards stumble backward in horror.

Kaelen slams into the wall mid-transformation hard enough to shatter stone. His wolf is no longer asking permission. Black fur tears across skin, and claws split through his hands.

The shift happens brutally fast—uncontrolled, pure panic.

Within seconds, the massive black wolf stands inside the destroyed infirmary, breathing hard enough to shake the floor.

The scent hunt hits instantly. Anastasia. Snow. Fear. Leaving.

The wolf goes insane. It crashes through the infirmary doors before anyone can stop it. Servants scream and dive out of the way as the Alpha King tears through Black Hollow's corridors like a creature possessed. Guards flatten themselves against walls; nobody dares interfere.

Outside, the storm swallows him immediately.

The wolf skids through the snow, nose low against the frozen ground while Anastasia's fading scent drifts dangerously thin beneath the blizzard.

Too faint. Too cold. Too far.

Panic escalates into something monstrous. The wolf howls, the sound ripping across the mountains hard enough to wake half the territory.

Inside the bond, Kaelen feels only emptiness now. No crying. No pain echoes. Nothing. Anastasia is disappearing from him completely.

The wolf loses control entirely after that. It starts tearing through the forest blindly, claws shredding trees and snow exploding beneath massive paws. Every instinct in the animal screams the same thing now—bring her back, bring her back, bring her back.

But miles ahead beyond the storm, Anastasia keeps walking alone through the snow with frozen hands and a dead-silent wolf.

And for the first time in her life, she chooses herself over... somebody else.