The training grounds of the Blackwood Estate were a pit of red dust, salt-stiffened sweat, and the iron-tang of raw adrenaline. This was the brutal heart of the pack’s strength, a place where the weak were systematically broken and the strong were forged into jagged weapons of war. Here, the air was never still; it was constantly churned by the rhythmic thud of bodies hitting the earth and the sharp, barked commands of the instructors.
Silas, the Training Master, was a man whose face was a roadmap of jagged scars and whose heart was made of flint and obsidian. He stood on a raised dais, his arms crossed over a chest that looked like it had been carved from an old oak tree. His eyes, cold and restless, tracked the movement of fifty young pups. He didn't look for grace; he looked for the in
