[Rhea P.O.V.]
The gates of the Ice Howler Pack opened with a groan of rusted iron and old power.
Snow crunched beneath my boots as I followed Luca across the threshold, the boundary line behind us still burning along my skin like a phantom brand. It wasn’t just magic. It was something older... territorial warning, steeped in blood and silence. The Ice Howlers didn’t just mark their borders. They haunted them.
Wolves watched from rooftops, stone towers, behind narrow slits in frozen walls. Their expressions were unreadable, faces carved in stoicism, but their attention was sharp enough to flay me where I stood. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t shrink. But I felt it.
Even with Luca walking beside me, the message was clear: I was not one of them. And I was only here to bend.
Juno wouldn’t, I th
