***

Vince wasn’t impervious to a healthy dose of fear, and as he followed Theodore through the pine trees with only the moon above to guide them he understood enough to know that the outcome of their little trip through the woods at night might not be the most fortunate.

Although he had known for a long time he was a guardian, he hadn’t truly felt the power of his calling until a few days ago, when the current events had started unfurling. Once he understood that his role as Danny’s guardian was approaching its end, he couldn’t stave off a feeling of disappointment. Was this everything he was meant to be?

That feeling had faded the moment Jack started laying down his cards. Despite the warning ringing like an alarm inside his head, Vince knew that this was his role. Not necessarily to guard Theodore Pembroke, but to be close to him and help him in any way he could.

It looked like the lone alpha knew precisely where they were going. They arrived at a clearing, and Vince noticed right away the large boulder with a flat surface facing the moon. He didn’t have to have the vision of a wolf because the moon was particularly bright tonight. It was obvious to anyone looking that the boulder, singular in its presence in the clearing, was no ordinary rock. Ancient runes had been carved on its face by the hands of giants from times long gone.

Vince approached the boulder cautiously. It called to him with the power of something greater than him or anyone else.

And when he reached it, a sudden apprehension gripped his guts. He could understand the runes. He didn’t know how or why. But they were telling of an old prophecy, one as old as time. His fingers traced the runes, his lips moving of their own accord.

“Stop,” Theodore warned him in a hissing voice.

But Vince couldn’t. The prophecy spoke of an old battle between long-forgotten witches and wolves who had been sent to guard the realm of humans and prevent their evil spirits to spill into the world.

This was bigger than Ryder’s pack being cursed to disappear at the next full moon. Vince couldn’t understand everything he was reading, and his forehead was moving closer and closer to the rock, as if his eyes couldn’t otherwise comprehend the meaning of those ancient words unless he made himself one with the boulder—

A banshee-like scream cut through the air. Vince froze where he was, bent over the boulder and its face full of runes. Behind him, Theodore was growling like a wild beast.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t see. He was being trapped by the boulder and its magic, and at the last moment, his body moved by itself.

Vince threw himself over the boulder to cover the runes, aware that he couldn’t allow whatever presence was drawing near to read the meaning of the ancient inscription through his mind.

His body was tense like a coiled spring as he hid the runes with his body. But he was no longer in control of it. Thin threads, fine like spun silver, cut through his skin as they caught him and turned him, wanting to flip him off the boulder.

It worked at first, but Vince managed to grab the edge of the boulder with one hand. His other searched for another anchor point and found it. He was on his back now, facing the moon, while the thin threads cut through the fabric of his clothes, turning them into rags.

Vince didn’t dare breathe. He only knew that between a horrible evil and the world, he was the only guardian. To learn the meaning of the runes, the witch had to go through him first. If that cost him his life, so be it.

***

“Cassandra!” Theodore hissed at the sight of an old woman with disheveled hair, wearing a tattered robe that reached the ground, hiding her body.

“The alpha of Whiteflame,” she said in a gravel-like voice. “Long time no see.”

Theodore flinched upon hearing the name of his pack, lost forever, from the dessicated lips of the witch.

“I am here to kill you,” he growled at her.

He stopped as he saw the silver threads running from the claws her hands had become. They were buried deep in the flesh of the human who had stubbornly insisted on following him. And now he was lying there, on top of that strange rock, looking like he was about to be cut into pieces if Cassandra did as little as flick her wrist.

Theodore set his jaw hard. He had warned the human about such perils. And now, he was about to die.

“Let him go,” he ordered. “He is only a human who just happened to be here in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Cassandra howled with laughter, throwing her head back. She transformed from a mere old woman into something more vicious as she did that. The skin of her face stretched and thinned until the skull underneath became visible, and her mouth grew large, with jagged teeth like those of sharks, while the shape of her head changed, becoming elongated. It reminded Theodore of a creature he had seen before, but before he managed to trace that thought, it disappeared.

“He’s no mere human,” Cassandra warned him in a cavernous voice. “But he will die. Unless,” she added slyly, “you don’t mind taking his place. Your blood, alpha. Or his?”

The land beneath his feet was sinking. A tremor passed through his body, making his hair stand on end. This was power. He only had to wield it.

If only he didn’t have to care about the fate of that dumb human. Theodore couldn’t understand his heart. He had warned Vince about this outcome. He had told him that he wouldn’t come to his rescue if anything happened.

Yet, he was standing here, unmoving, unknowing what his heart truly desired. The human’s strong body was as good as naked now, his clothes cut into pieces, singed and burned. Vince’s face was turned toward the moon, and Theodore’s eyes followed where he was looking.

“What is he?” Theodore spoke without thinking.

“You haven’t figured it out yet?” Cassandra said in the same sly voice she had used earlier. “He’s a guardian. And right now, he’s guarding a secret that should be mine!”

With a yell, her hand moved, the threads of her spell cutting deeper into Vince’s flesh. But they weren’t cutting too deep, Theodore realized. Why? And what is this nonsense about a guardian—

He had gleaned the message of Jack’s cards, even if only a little. The field mouse thought himself clever to hide what he kept discovering. If they were lying, Theodore’s life was forfeit. But it was that glimmer of hope that kept him standing tall.

Cassandra wasn’t holding Vince down with her silver threads. No, she was trying to pull him off that rock, but her powers weren’t strong enough.

Earlier, Vince had started reading the runes in the stone. Theodore had felt the air turning electric, like a brewing storm. He had asked the human to stop, not because he could wield any power over him, but because he understood that a terrible secret would soon be revealed.

“Have you decided yet?” Cassandra asked him, her snappy tone confirming that his lack of reaction troubled her.

“Kill him,” Theodore said even as tendrils of cold fire coursed through him. “If you can.”