Lucien
The fortress was cold that night.
Lucien stood alone on the balcony, his hands pressed to the stone ledge. Below him, wolves moved in steady patrols.
He barely saw them. His mind was far away, pulled back to a night he never forgot.
The night of Blackridge.
He had been younger then. The war had already raged for weeks. Packs had fallen. Borders burned. And the valley of Blackridge had become the battlefield no one wanted to remember.
Lucien closed his eyes, and the memory rose clear.
The snow had already melted from the ground, turned to mud by fire and blood. Wolves stood in lines, spears trembling in their hands.
“Alpha Lucien,” Reid’s voice had cut through the roar of the flames. His Beta’s face was streaked with dirt, his arm bound with cloth. “We can’t hold the ridge.
