Inside the nursery, the twins were deep in a peaceful, safe sleep. Hazel had spent an hour ensuring their breathing was rhythmic and steady before she slipped through the narrow window of her own servant quarters.
She didn't wear her plain gray nanny apron or her regular cloth shoes tonight. She had dressed in a tight, pitch-black tunic, dark trousers, and soft leather boots that left almost no imprint in the light dusting of snow. Her headscarf was replaced by a dark woolen hood drawn low over her brow.
Armed with the coordinates she had memorized from Beta Silas’s hidden ledger in the restricted archive room, Hazel moved like a phantom.
Reaching the high stone perimeter wall was only the first challenge. The outer borders of the pack territory were heavily defended by rotating squads
