I feel it before dawn.
It’s not pain. Not exactly. It’s pressure—low and relentless, like the earth shifting beneath stone. My wolf stirs beneath my skin, restless in a way that has nothing to do with territory or threat. It has a direction now. A gravity.
Selene.
I don’t let myself think her name too long. That’s a mistake these days.
The pack wakes slowly around me, unaware of the tension threading my bones, unaware that the line I’m walking grows thinner with every passing hour. Rut is still days away—maybe weeks—but it’s close enough that my wolf tastes it. Close enough that instinct is sharpening where discipline should be.
And discipline is what they need from me.
I stand at the edge of the grounds as the sky lightens, arms crossed, jaw tight. Scouts move in and out of the peri
