Chapter 84

MAGGIE

I crouched just beyond the treeline, the scent of smoke curling around me like a whisper I didn’t want to hear. It clung to my clothes, my skin, the edges of my thoughts. Below, the aftermath of the raid smoldered quietly—embers glowing like dying stars scattered in the dirt, streaks of blood and ash smeared across broken ground.

The silence that followed was worse than the chaos. Empty. Final.

It hadn’t been a major strike. A backwater pack barely clinging to their territory, their numbers thin, their defenses laughable.

There was nothing down there worth spilling blood for. No strategic value. No supplies to resell. No tech. Just a name on someone’s grudge list, probably. Some rogue looking to prove something.

Idiots.

They’d wasted energy. Burned lives. All for the illusion of strength.

I should have stopped it. Should’ve stepped in before it turned into the reckless disaster unraveling below me. But I hadn’t. I’d stayed back. Watching from the shadows like I didn’t belong to any of it.

Because maybe… I didn’t.

I pressed my palm against the rough bark of a tree beside me, grounding myself. The forest was quiet now, but the kind of quiet that comes after something terrible. The kind that leaves you hollow.

It was always like this—on the outside looking in. I wasn’t part of the chaos or the clean-up. I wasn’t part of anything. Just the lone figure at the edge of the woods, watching the world keep spinning without her.

A knot tightened in my chest.

I wasn’t a part of the pack I’d once called home.

I wasn’t a part of the rogues—not really. Not fully.

I was in-between. Floating. Forgotten.

And Goddess help me, I wanted to belong. I wanted to feel like I had something—someone—that was mine. A place where I wasn’t just tolerated. Where I didn’t have to prove myself over and over just to keep breathing.

But all I had was this.

Smoke in my lungs. Blood in my memories. And silence that wrapped around me like a shroud.

I pushed off the tree, feeling sorry for myself, ready to move on to whatever life held for me.

And that’s when I felt it.

The bond snapped.

It wasn’t loud or dramatic. It didn’t break like glass or thunder or fire. It just… ended. Like a flame burning down to nothing. One moment it was there—faint and pulsing in the back of my chest—and the next it was gone.

My breath caught.

I pressed my hand to my ribs, like I could hold it in. Like I could stop the absence from swallowing me whole.

But I couldn’t.

He was dead.

My father. The monster who made me.

He was dead.

The relief hit me first. Like wind through a window that had been bolted shut for years. I could breathe—really breathe—for the first time in a long time. The constant pressure in my lungs vanished.

The fear, the rage, the invisible leash around my spine… gone.

But then the rest followed. Guilt. Disorientation. That bitter taste you get when you finally win the fight, but you’re still bleeding.

Because he was my father.

And I hated him.

But he was also the reason I was still alive.

I stared down at the ruin below. My vision blurred for a moment—not from tears, exactly, but from something that lived deeper than that. Something rotten and buried.

He was the one who taught me to survive. Who told me strength was everything. Who snapped my childhood in half and shaped me into a weapon.

And now the weapon was free.

My hands curled into fists.

He took everything from me. My pack. My friends.

My mate.

I hadn’t thought about him in a long time. Not by name. Not by voice.

But in that moment, I could feel the echo of it all—the bond he’d rejected, the disgust in his eyes, the venom in his voice when he told me I was no better than the rogues we fought.

But I wasn’t a rogue.

I certainly hadn’t been born one.

And I was still here.

I stood and turned away from the smoldering field. My steps were slow at first, then faster. The forest closed around me as I moved through the trees, branches catching on my jacket like they wanted to hold me back.

But nothing could stop me now.

When I reached the rogue camp, the tension hit me like static. You could feel it in the way people shifted, the way eyes darted, the way no one spoke above a whisper. They were waiting for someone to tell them what came next.

They were waiting for him.

But he wasn’t coming back.

“He’s not here,” I said, loud enough to cut through the quiet.

Heads turned.

“He’s not coming back.”

A few rogues moved closer. One—taller, broad-shouldered, young—stepped forward. “How do you know?”

“Because he’s dead,” I said plainly.

That stirred them.

“Yeah?” the same rogue said, voice sharpening. “Again. How do you know?”

I looked him straight in the eye. “Because Pierce was my father. And I felt our bond break.”

Silence.

No one moved. Even the wind seemed to still.

Shock rippled across the camp like heat. A few of the older rogues flinched. Others stared at me like I’d just grow horns. But I didn’t back down.

I didn’t raise my voice.

I didn’t have to.

“You shouldn’t be sorry he’s gone,” I said. “I’m not.”

I looked around at the lean faces around me. Other lives he had a hand in ruining.

“He burned villages for the sake of chaos. He treated your lives like they’re disposable. He ruled by fear. And you’re all the poorer for it.”

I stepped forward.

“I’m not going to do that.”

A tall rogue with the aura of a Beta stepped forward. “And just what exactly is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“I’m taking over this faction,” I said, not knowing I had planned to do it until the words were out of my mouth.

That stirred them again.

“You?” someone muttered. “Why should we follow you?”

“Because I’m smarter than he ever was,” I snapped. “Because I’ve seen what this faction could be if it stopped eating itself alive.”

“We’re organized now,” someone else said. “We’ve planned things. Saw our plans through. They had a whole summit about it.”

“And for what?” I asked. “Sowing seeds of discord amongst the packs? Congratulations. You’ve achieved something that would have happened anyway and has since time immemorial.”

A heavy silence followed my words, thick as smoke. I could feel their doubt pressing in, the weight of a dozen unspoken questions—all of them circling the same thing: Who the hell was I to say any of this?

I met every pair of eyes I could find.

“This doesn’t have to end the way it always does,” I said, quieter now, but no less firm. “Blood for blood. Strike for strike. Chaos for chaos. That’s how he kept control. That’s not how we survive.”

They didn’t move.

Not toward me. Not away.

But they were listening.

I could feel the shift—not belief, not yet, but curiosity. And in a camp like this, curiosity was as good as hope.

“If you want someone to yell and scream and tear down packs for the thrill of it, find another ghost to worship,” I went on. “But if you want something more—if you want to stop scraping by and start building something—we can start tonight.”

Still, there were grumbles. Suspicion. Unease.

I pointed to the war tent at the far end of the camp. “Show me what you have. Intel. Maps. Financials. Contacts. Everything.”

A woman crossed her arms. “Do you plan to stop the raids?”

“No,” I said. “But I plan to make them count.”

Another voice: “We’re rogues. We don’t count.”

I stared her down. “We do now.”

A few of them exchanged looks.

“I plan to make us as rich and powerful as Moonstone and Silverclaw,” I continued. “They think they’re untouchable. But I know their weaknesses. I know their politics. I know the way they treat anyone who doesn’t fit their mold.”

I held their gazes.

“This isn’t just a rogue faction anymore,” I said. “It’s a pack.”