The Reckoning
The first alarm howled through the mountains just after midnight.
Rowan jerked upright in bed, heart already racing before his eyes fully opened. Beside him, Caleb was half-shifted, instincts reacting faster than thought. The cry echoed again—urgent, unbroken. A sentinel’s warning. Not a skirmish. Not a scout.
An invasion.
“The southern ridge,” Caleb rasped, already moving.
Rowan leapt to his feet, yanking on his boots and grabbing his blades. “That’s the weakest perimeter.”
Caleb was at the door, shifting fully into his wolf mid-motion, dark fur rippling as he burst into the corridor. Rowan followed seconds later, his Alpha voice roaring down the stone halls of the pack house.
“To arms! All warriors—form up at the ridge!”
Chaos bloomed behind him—wolves sprinting, sh
