The command center of the Blood-Moon Stronghold was a theater of cold blue light and the rhythmic hum of cooling servers. Outside, the world was still reeling from the manifestation of the Moonstone Heart in Oakhaven, but inside, Beta Silas was hunting a different kind of monster.
He sat before a private terminal, his eyes bloodshot from thirty-six hours of data-mining. While Hunter was lost in a spiral of grief and possessive rage, Silas had remained the pragmatist. He was the "Shield of the Alpha," and his job was to see the holes in the story that everyone else was too emotional to notice.
"It doesn't add up," Silas muttered, his fingers flying across the holographic interface. "The river was at its peak flood stage. The thermal sensors from five years ago showed zero life signs. And
