The rain didn't feel like water; it felt like needles of ice piercing Elara’s skin. She was small—smaller than she remembered, her bones thin and her silver hair matted with the mud of the riverbank. The smell of the pier—rotting wood, wet wool, and the metallic tang of the river—was so vivid it made her stomach heave.
This was the beginning. The night Kaelen had found her. The night the "Stray" became a mate.
But as the massive obsidian wolf stepped out of the fog, the script of her life veered into the abyss. The wolf’s eyes weren't the warm, honeyed amber that had once promised her a home. They were two glowing pits of Solid Brass, flat and mechanical, reflecting a hunger that wasn't of this world.
"Kaelen?" she whispered, her voice the high, thin reed of a terrified child.
The wolf
