Free Web NovelChapter 368: Chapter 368 Breaking Point
Lizzy
Blue Ridge disappears behind me in layers, first the wards thinning into something I can breathe through, then the trees breaking into rougher ground, then the familiar scents fading until the pack’s signature becomes a ghost instead of a wall, and I don’t stop moving until the land feels uncertain again, until the rules loosen enough that I can think.
I am not alone, not really, even when the night stretches wide and the wind cuts colder than it should, because anger is company and purpose sharpens it, and both sit hot and bright under my skin.
I replay it all as I move, because fury likes detail, the council chamber, the fox girl’s calm hands, the way Ezra didn’t even hesitate when he said Luna, like the word had been waiting for her all along, and the way the others backed him without fracture, without doubt, without the slightest opening for me to slip into.
It wasn’t supposed to go that way.
Ezra was supposed to be mine, the obvious one, the one who likes strength and loyalty and fire, the one who would recognize what I offered because wolves understand wolves, and I had been careful, patient, warm where it mattered and sharp where it counted, letting him see the edges without seeing the blade.
I did everything right, and still, they chose her.
Not just Ezra, all of them, closing ranks around a fox like it was nothing, like species didn’t matter, like bloodlines were suggestions instead of law, and what burns worst is not rejection, it’s irrelevance, the realization that I wasn’t even a temptation strong enough to fracture them.
Alpha Jack tried.
I know he did, because he tells me so in the quiet spaces between messages, his frustration bleeding through the words even when he dresses them in authority, telling me he pushed, that he reminded them of tradition and expectation, that he made it clear what a Luna should be.
But he failed, and that failure eats at him almost as much as it eats at me.
He still helps me, though, quietly, indirectly, the way men like him always do when they think they’re preserving something sacred, slipping me information he pretends is incidental, warning me about patrol shifts, about changes in communication, about how the triplets are parading the fox openly now, touching her, smiling at her, calling her mate and Luna like it’s a statement instead of a provocation.
Every message tightens something ugly and delicious in my chest.
He tells me they’ve reduced tech, that they’re relying more on mind link, that they think it brings them closer to the pack, and all I hear is vulnerability wrapped in arrogance, the belief that intimacy equals safety. It doesn’t.
I ghost the borders at night, moving slow and quiet, skirting the wards just close enough to feel their edges without tripping them, memorizing patterns, timing rotations, noting where confidence has replaced caution, because every defense has a weakness and I will find theirs.
The fox must have one, she has to. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
No one is that composed without cracks underneath, and I refuse to believe she’s anything but surface, a pretty distraction dressed up as competence, wrong species, wrong instincts, wrong everything, and the fact that she took me down without hurting me only fuels the hatred, because restraint is just another way to humiliate someone.
She made me look small, I don’t forgive that.
I keep moving, circling wide, letting my scent fade and reappear in places that mean nothing on their own, testing response times, watching how quickly guards react, how far they spread, how much they rely on each other instead of systems now, and it’s almost funny how sure they are that they’ve already won.
They haven’t even seen me yet.
My father answers when I call, his voice rough with anger before I’ve even finished explaining, because I don’t tell the truth, not exactly, I tell the version that matters, the one where the triplets played me, used me, promised things they never intended to honor, where they took what they wanted and discarded me when the fox became convenient.
I don’t have to exaggerate much.
His rage fills the line, heavy and protective and blind in the way only a parent’s fury can be, and when he says he’ll help, that he’ll send men, not pack, not bound by laws or councils, but rogues enough to matter, I let myself smile into the darkness. Support doesn’t have to be official to be effective.
They arrive in staggered pairs, rough around the edges, loyal to coin and cause rather than hierarchy, and I choose carefully, because chaos is only useful when it’s directed, and I don’t need an army, I need pressure, distraction, enough power at the perimeter to stretch Blue Ridge thin.
Alpha Jack keeps feeding me scraps, little updates that feel like confessions even when he pretends they’re warnings, telling me how his sons won’t listen, how they undermine him publicly now, how his wife has turned against him, aligning herself with the fox like betrayal tastes better than obedience.
He sounds wounded, good, wounded men make mistakes.
I don’t tell him everything, only what keeps him talking, keeps him invested, because leverage is a delicate thing and I intend to hold it until it breaks or bends the right way.
The fox is always the center of it, always the irritant, always the wrongness that made everything else possible, and I study her from a distance when I can, watching how she moves, how she stands between the triplets without shrinking, how she projects warmth like it’s a weapon, drawing wolves to her with smiles and steady eyes and that infuriating calm.
She must have a weakness, everyone does.
Maybe it’s trust, maybe it’s compassion, maybe it’s the belief that she can win hearts faster than blades ever could, and I test that too, letting rumors slip where they’ll fester, nudging fear where acceptance has started to take root, because packs turn on what they’re taught to fear.
I tell myself she’s ugly, slow, nothing special, the wrong species wearing borrowed authority, and sometimes I almost believe it, until I remember the way the room shifted when she spoke, the way even those who hated her listened.
That scares me more than strength.
So I sharpen my intent instead of dulling it, because hesitation is a luxury I don’t have anymore, and I don’t need everyone’s help to finish this, just enough to get close, just enough to make one moment unguarded.
I don’t care how it happens, not anymore, whether it’s subtle or brutal, clean or messy, because the outcome is what matters, and the outcome is simple. freeweɓnøvel.com
She dies, the triplets break and the pack remembers what a Luna is supposed to look like.
With or without Alpha Jack, with or without my father’s men, with or without anyone’s blessing, I will take what should have been mine, and when I step back into Blue Ridge it won’t be as a guest or a hopeful or a discarded option.
It will be as a reckoning.
