For one breathless heartbeat, the arena was perfectly still.
The moon’s blood-red light painted every face, glinting off steel and catching in eyes wide with shock.
Then the sound hit — a roar that came from everywhere at once.
Some voices cheered, the kind of raw, guttural cry that came from wolves who had just seen something they’d waited a lifetime for. Others shouted in rage, their anger whipping through the crowd like a winter gale.
The officiant’s voice was lost in it, swallowed whole by the chaos.
Elinora stood on the pillar, the hum of the First Alpha’s power still thrumming through her veins. It was different from the day she’d faced him in the Heart — sharper, heavier, as though it had truly settled into her bones.
Her wolf prowled at the edges of her mind, its tail high, i
