Her name was Iris.
Rowan said it the way you say the name of something you have been afraid to say out loud for a long time in case the saying of it made the losing of it more real.
"Iris Vale," he said. "Twenty six. She grew up in the Thornfield Pack on the southern border. She came to Ironpeak two years ago for a trade delegation and she stayed three extra days and I did not want her to leave and she did not want to go." He looked at his hands. "We bonded on the fourth morning. Before sunrise. In the forest behind the eastern boundary." He paused. "It was the most certain I have ever been about anything in my life."
The alarm was still running its steady pulse through the packhouse walls.
Outside, warriors were moving to positions with the quiet efficiency of a pack that had drilled
