The threshold came without warning on a night that smelled of coming snow.
We were in a forward position again. The farmhouse had become familiar—wood floors worn smooth by boots, the particular creak of the third board from the left.
Evan stood at my left shoulder. Zane had taken a position near the door, not inside, not outside. Close enough.
Victor was somewhere on the line. I could feel his presence the way you feel a storm front—pine and tobacco carried by the wind even when he wasn’t in the room.
The Alpha they brought in this time was young. Barely eighteen. His unit had been overrun. He had watched everyone he knew die in under four minutes. The grief had collapsed straight into full dissolution.
I took his hand.
The moment I reached in, the boundary dissolved fas
