The shadow of the basalt pillar did not offer shelter; it merely compressed the dark.
Jaxon stood motionless against the weeping granite, his arms folded tight across the heavy, frosted hide of his wolf-pelt cloak. His nostrils flared automatically, filtering the suffocating soup of the Grand Hall, the rancid boar grease, the sour ale, the thick, metallic tang of the silver-drop vintage Silas had just forced down Selene’s throat.
Through the invisible, high-grade frequency of his prime Beta lineage, his inner wolf was a coiled spring of pure, chemical panic. His scent, usually a steady, grounded profile of crushed pine and winter earth, had spiked into a sharp, acrid musk of anxiety that clung to the damp stones around him.
He had watched her swallow the fire. He had seen the exact micr
