Lyra
The forest held its breath for us.
When Killian and I slipped out of the packhouse, the world was a black page splattered with pale stars. The air smelled of moss and cold earth; every twig underfoot sounded like a drum. I kept my wolf low, curling her presence into a thin, humming thread at the back of my mind; quiet and watchful, the way Elyndra liked it when we moved undetected. My palms felt oddly hot in the night, fingers tingling as if the skin itself remembered the old words.
“This way,” Killian murmured, voice rough with the same focused calm that steadied me when storms threatened. He led, and I followed, our steps a single animal moving through the trees. The pack’s borders were close to the southern stream where the land dipped and the sluice narrowed, a blind spot Damon
