The mountains heard him first.
A single howl ripped into the night air — primal, broken, resurrected.
The forest answered, leaves trembling as wolves from every corner of Blackthorn Ridge lifted their heads, ears pricked, breaths held. The sound was impossible — a ghost’s voice echoing after half a decade of silence. The Alpha’s wolf… awake.
Marcus was the first to reach him.
Killian stood at the border of pack lands, body trembling violently, breath ripping out of him in ragged, animal bursts. His eyes—once coal black—were now the molten gold of a rage-struck wolf barely held in human form.
“You need to shift,” Marcus said quietly, cautiously. “You can’t hold him back this time.”
Killian’s jaw clenched. “I can’t—” his voice cracked, and not with weakness, but with a kind of devastat
