CHAPTER 36
VALERIOPaws hitting the ground hard, I sprinted toward the sound of Mae’s screams to an abandoned pack house just outside Witver Forest. I had left her in her father’s care for a moment, a mere moment, to give the Queen a status report. And now, she was shrieking.
Mae had been safe for the past twenty years. I couldn’t let anything happen to her now. It was my duty to protect her and to keep her alive. Too many people wanted her dead, and she didn’t even know it yet.
I shifted, slipped in through a back door, and followed Mae’s voice down to the cellar, the stench of blood perforating my entire body and making it difficult to breathe. Small yips and hiccups echoed through the narrow cement corridor. Pups.
Mae had uncovered a Challenger hideout.
“My Queen,” I said through my
