The silence in the grand hall was strained, a flammable gas seeking a spark. The air, usually redolent with pine and ozone, was thick with the bitter sting of adrenaline and the sickly sweetness of tension. The pack was there, not as a unit, but as two competing factions standing in antagonism to each other across the cold stone floor.
On one side were the scientists, clustered around Lyra, Finn, and a pale, still-shaken Rylan. They stood guard, arms crossed or hands shoved into lab coat pockets. Their turf was logic, evidence, the integrity of the double-blind trial.
On the other stood the warriors, led by Orrin and Jax. They were a wall of restless muscle and simmering fury, still smelling of the night air and the metallic tang of the city mission. Theirs was the world of action, of th
