The packhouse was eerily quiet as I sat in my office, staring out the window at the forest beyond. The shadows of the trees seemed to stretch endlessly, dark and foreboding, as if reflecting the unease that settled over the pack in the aftermath of the battle. My body still ached from the fight, the wounds from the vampire leader’s claws healing slowly, but it was the weight on my mind that truly exhausted me.
We had won, but it hadn’t felt like a victory. The vampire leader was dead, and we had saved our pack from annihilation, but the cost had been steep. Too many lives had been lost, too many wounded. And Kaelan—he was still recovering in the infirmary, his strength slowly returning, but the sight of him lying there, broken and battered, haunted me.
I heard a soft knock on the door an
