Angel woke with a start, her lungs straining as though she had been running for miles. Cold sweat clung to her temples, her heart racing as if it wanted to claw out of her chest. The pledging field outside Dragonstone still hummed with energy — thousands of shifters gathering under the new rule of Steel Bear, the freshly crowned Shifter King. Wolves, lions, foxes, even scattered rogues all bent knee to him now. Yet her dream left her with a certainty: not all would come.
Not the ones who mattered most.
She pushed off the furs, the night air stinging her cheeks. The fires across the field burned low, but her vision was too sharp to mistake the forms that lingered: the restless wolves on patrol, the drunken roars of packs celebrating late into the night. Even with the Dragon decree, there
