The concrete trembled.
It wasn’t a metaphor. The physical floor vibrated under the sheer, unnatural mass of the Sovereign wolf stalking toward her.
Water from the emergency sprinklers hissed against the ruined drywall, pooling around Jane’s bare feet. A flickering fluorescent tube above them buzzed in a flat, annoying B-flat. That was what her brain chose to focus on. The humming light. The cold water. The way the silver nitrate smoke clung to the floorboards like dry ice.
Jane pressed her hand against her left side. The ribs shifted. A sharp, blinding spike of agony radiated through her chest. Three fractures, at least.
She cataloged the pain, placed it in a sterile mental box, and locked it.
Fifty feet away, the beast stopped.
He was entirely black, a looming silhouette of matted f
