The lodge trembles under the weight of failing bonds.
I stand in the central war room, maps spread across the heavy oak table, elders gathered around me like old ghosts. Their faces are etched with the same fear clawing at my chest. Thorne, the oldest among us, grips his cane until his knuckles turn white. Others pace or stare into the distance, eyes glazed as the pack link fractures.
“Rowena,” Thorne rasps, voice heavy with age and dread. “The variant… it’s everywhere.”
I feel it too.
Through the Alpha mother bond, the pack’s pain crashes into me like a tidal wave. Howls of agony rise from the forests surrounding the lodge. Wolves collapse mid-patrol. Shifters twist grotesquely between forms as the Fenrir Variant-7 tears them apart from within. Some rage blindly, attacking anything th
