The first wave hit the eastern wall before Amara had even found her staff.
The shelter, which had felt so solid an hour ago, suddenly seemed thin as paper against the sound of bodies slamming into stone and the snarl of wolves meeting wolves in the dark outside. Damian was already moving, shouting orders that scattered the pack into positions they’d clearly drilled a hundred times before.
“Inside,” he told Amara, sharp enough that she didn’t argue. “Behind the others. Now.”
She hated it, but she went, pressing herself into the shadow of the doorway while Rhea and a dozen others poured out to meet the attack. The noise outside was chaos, growls and shouts and the wet, brutal sound of a fight that didn’t care how many of them survived it.
Elena appeared at her side a moment later, blade
