The air inside the subterranean belly of the Blood Moon fortress always tasted of old rust and damp stone.
Jaxon stood in the deep, skeletal shadows of a vaulted granite pillar, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his gaze fixed on the iron-reinforced dais at the center of the hall. He stood so perfectly still that he might have been mistaken for one of the grotesque gargoyles carved into the rock face. He was a man built for the dark, tall, broad-shouldered, and draped in a heavy, battle-scarred cloak of dark wolf-pelt that hid the map of silver-burns cutting across his throat.
As the Beta of the Blood Moon pack, it was his duty to be his brother’s shadow. But lately, the shadow felt entirely too close to the rot.
At the center of the hall, illuminated by the violent, spitting orang
