Claimed
One year later, the full moon rose over Silver Ridge the same way it always had—fat, silver, and indifferent to the histories of the wolves who ran beneath it.
Lila stood on the back porch of the pack house with a mug of tea cooling between her palms and watched the light change across the pines. The claim mark on her neck was a pale, permanent scar now, fully healed and fully settled into the landscape of her skin. The sealed bond hummed deep and steady in her chest, no longer a new or fragile thing but a foundational current she noticed most when she paid deliberate attention to it. On ordinary days it simply existed, quiet and constant, the way a heartbeat existed. On nights like this—full moon, the territory still thrumming with the residual energy of the communal run—it deep
