RAINE
I woke to the sound of breathing that wasn’t my own.
For a moment, I thought I was still trapped between pain and nothing, where memories and nightmares blur together and time loses meaning. My body felt heavier than usual. Every muscle ached.
The ceiling above me was unfamiliar, built from dark, solid wooden beams. It wasn’t the cold stone of my pack’s infirmary or the damp concrete of a cell.
And then it hit me.
The scent.
Pine, oil, leather, and steel. The scent settled deep inside me and made my chest tighten. I hadn’t smelled it in years.
Wolf.
Relief hit me so quickly my vision blurred. A low, broken sound slipped from my throat before I could stop it. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t captured. I wasn’t dead.
But relief was quickly followed by something colder, heavier.
Worr
