It happened on a Wednesday.
Selene was in the garden when the alarm sounded.
Not a bell. Ironmoon did not use bells. The pack alarm was a sound she had not heard before, three short sharp howls in rapid succession from the northern watch post, the kind of sound that carried its own meaning without translation, immediate and cold and entirely clear about what it was saying.
Something was wrong at the borders.
She stood up from the south wall bed where she had been working the soil around the thyme, her hands still dark with earth, and looked toward the northern tree line visible above the garden wall. The sound had come from that direction. Close enough that the quality of it had been sharp rather than distant.
She heard running in the pack house behind her.
She heard Rhys's voice, no
