Six months later, the winter winds howled through the shattered rafters of the Bloodmoon great hall.
Kaelen sat on the carved wooden throne, wrapped in heavy, moth-eaten blankets. The grand fires that used to burn day and night in the massive hearths had dwindled to pathetic, smoking embers. The pack simply didn't have the manpower or the strength to chop enough wood.
He stared blankly at the frost creeping across the stone floor. His right arm hung uselessly at his side, the shoulder permanently dislocated and improperly healed after the Rite of Blood. His nose had set crookedly, ruining his handsome profile, but it was the dull, dead look in his golden eyes that truly marked his destruction.
He was no longer an Alpha. The Elders hadn't officially stripped him of his title upon his ret
