The howl vibrating through the frozen valley didn't belong to a wolf. It sounded like the mountain itself breaking in half.
Inside the cavern, the two surviving enforcers didn't just freeze; they collapsed. Their weapons clattered onto the stone floor as their knees gave way, their wolves whimpering hysterically inside their minds. It was a primal, humiliating terror—the kind hardwired into every shifter's bloodline, buried deep under centuries of forgotten history.
Evelyn stood in the center of the cave, her sight tinted in stark, luminescent silver.
She couldn't feel the bite of the mountain drafts rushing through the shattered entrance. She couldn't feel the bone-deep ache in her ribs. Her pulse beat slow and heavy, resounding like a iron drum inside her ears. Beneath her hands, her
