The storm pinned Nightfall down for two days.
Snow came in hard, sideways sheets, turning the world into a white wall. Patrols were cut to the bare minimum. Most work moved indoors. Wolves rotated between mending, cooking, and staring out fogged windows like caged things.
Aria expected the walls to close in.
Instead, the enforced stillness did something strange: it stretched time in a way that wasn’t only painful.
She spent the mornings with the pups, the afternoons helping Mara in the kitchen, the evenings at the fire, listening more than speaking. Once, Rowan dragged half the pack outside for a “snow shift”—everyone changing and tumbling in the drifts like overgrown pups until the worst of the storm‑heavy tension broke in barking laughter.
Her wolf liked that. Liked the honest tumbl
