The training circle was a bowl of packed earth and ancient stone, hidden deep within the cedar groves where the scent of pine needles and old blood hung perpetually in the stagnant air.
It was a place of iron and instinct, where the social hierarchy of Blackthorn Ridge was reinforced not through words, but through the brutal clarity of tooth and nail.
Killian stood in the center, his chest bare despite the biting chill that seeped from the mountain peaks.
His skin was a map of old victories and one singular, devastating defeat—the ghostly white scar on his neck where the mate-bond had once been a vibrant, pulsing tether.
For five years, he had been a statue in this circle, a hollowed-out king who moved through drills with a mechanical, joyless precision.
But today was different. The a
