Chapter Sixteen
The Shadow on the Ridge
The first Crimson Fang horn sounded from the southern ridge.
One long note.
Low.
Deliberate.
It rolled through the forest and struck the Blackwood field ward like a stone dropped into still water. The invisible boundary shivered around the winter lodge, carrying the warning through every tree, every wolf, and every drop of blood used to establish the temporary claim.
Willow felt it from the healing bed.
Her eyes opened.
She had not been asleep.
Not truly.
Sleep required a kind of trust her body had not yet learned, and the renewed pain in her leg made drifting anywhere impossible. Seren’s splint held the fracture stable, but the healing fire had not erased it. Every heartbeat drove a deep ache through her ankle and into her calf.
The woun
