I felt it before I saw it.
That was the thing about having a gift built for sensing — once Maren had cracked the door open, everything came through it whether I invited it or not. I had been learning to filter, to manage the incoming frequency the way you learn to sleep through city noise, selective and practiced. But this was not pack noise. This was not the warm familiar signatures I had catalogued over sixteen days in Blackthorn territory.
This was cold.
Not cold like winter. Cold like the absence of something that should have been there. Like pressing your hand against a wall where a fire used to burn and finding stone that has forgotten what heat felt like.
Caden felt me tense beside him. His hand, still holding mine at the fire pit, went still.
"What is it?" Low. Immediate.
"So
