The silence in the training yard was a living thing, thick and cold, broken only by the ragged gasps of the wounded. The scent of burnt ozone, charred leather, and the coppery tang of blood hung heavy in the air. Where the Alpha’s command had been a wall of force, now there was only a vacuum, filled with the slow-dawning horror of what they had just witnessed.
Kael stood at its center, a statue of smoke and aftermath. The last wisps of the umbral energy, that impossible darkness that had swallowed the Alpha’s light, coiled around his forearms like dying serpents before dissolving into the twilight. He looked at his own hands as if they belonged to a stranger. The skin was unmarked, but the memory of that power cold, vast, and hungry thrummed in his marrow.
A low whine cut the silence. Ro
