Dawn came grey and heavy.
We left before the sun cleared the treeline. Twenty of us. The strongest who could still stand after last night. I rode with the Alpha at the front, Lena and Marcus flanking us. No one spoke. The packhouse behind us felt smaller than it had yesterday. Fragile.
The Crescent Moon territory was a three-day ride if you took the old roads. We weren’t taking the roads.
“They’ll be watching them,” the Alpha said, voice low as we cut through the eastern woods. “If they want us to come, they’ll want us on their terms.”
So we went through the wilds. Through places even wolves avoided. The land grew colder the farther we went. Trees twisted, bark blackened, like something had burned through here and never let it heal.
“This is cursed ground,” Marcus muttered b
