Chapter Thirty-Three
Alvaro's Point Of View
There it was. A note pinned to the breast of Rafe's cloak with a ring of bone, the little circle dug into the leather like a promise.
I found him before dawn. Felicia's scouts brought the news with quiet footsteps and faces too flat with controlled fury to speak. Rafe had been on watch, a young wolf with quick hands and quicker feet, the sort who could track fox prints through a snowfall. He was not a soldier to be missed lightly. He was family in the way the pack called the young ones family, given to us and taught by us and owned by none but the oath.
He was gone.
We followed a trail of crushed brush and char-blackened grass, a dark smear of blood that was not fresh enough to make a shriek of urgency and not old enough to be ignored. When
