“Open.”
The word rolled through the hollow like thunder under the ground.
Every wolf froze.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
Gwyn felt it strike the pack bond first — old authority, dead authority, a voice that should have had no right to reach living blood and still did.
Auren Silverfang.
The old bound wolf beneath the hollow.
The one Silverfang had buried and tried to forget.
The one whose blood had once stood close enough to Alpha power that the land still remembered him.
Ronan staggered.
Calla dropped to one knee with a snarl between her teeth.
The sentinels behind her followed, not willingly, but as if an unseen hand had shoved them down by the backs of their necks.
Gwyn’s knees buckled.
Kael caught her before she fell.
His arm locked around her waist, shadows flaring a
