Chapter 128: A Hunter in the Hall
The stone hallways breathed around him, a living thing with too many throats and not enough eyes. Sterling slipped through them like a ghost who hadn’t realized he’d died , soundless boots, shoulders brushing the old walls that still smelled of moss and cold smoke. His shadow followed him faithfully, stretching and curling as torchlight flickered in the draft.
Magnolia knew he was out there. She could feel him in her bones the way old wounds sometimes ache before the rain. She sat at the council table long after Beckett stormed off to fortify the east wing, her fingers drumming against the scarred wood. In front of her, the old map lay unrolled, its edges frayed, stained with the ghosts of battles that never quite ended.
She traced a line down the ridge where Camille might be , if Sterling spoke the truth. The thought turned her stomach. A truth from Sterling now was as likely as milk from a snake.
Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. A hunter’s tread.
Her eyes snapped up as the door creaked open. There he was , Sterling Hale, Beta once, traitor maybe, skin pale where the bruises hadn’t bloomed. He smiled, and it made the back of her throat itch.
"You’re up late," he said. His voice curled around the stone walls like smoke.
Magnolia leaned back in her chair, every muscle coiled tight beneath the calm she wore like a borrowed coat. "You’re prowling."
Sterling stepped inside, closing the heavy door with a soft snick of iron. He didn’t look at the guards , they were shadows to him now, boys with blades too dull to cut him if he chose to bleed.
"I couldn’t sleep," he said. "Figured I’d check the locks. Make sure no one’s planning to gut me in my sleep."
Magnolia’s lips twitched. "Would they be wrong to?"
Sterling’s grin widened, teeth flashing white between cracked lips. He looked so much like the wolf she remembered , before the pit, before Gabriel , but there was something in his eyes now. A depth that didn’t reflect light back. A hole you fell into if you stared too long.