The air in the forest was humid, clinging and shrouded with mist, as suddenly, after weeks, Lowell opened his eyes fully for the first time. His body protested; his muscles felt stiff and heavy. But whatever pain he might have felt was compared to the stone pressing deep in his chest. He remembered bits and pieces: of being carried, the fire, the bite of silver in his veins. But now, there was only silence.
He blinked, and the first face he saw was the old man, his father's Beta. The man’s visage was austere, a witness to decades of loss, yet his eyes were steady. Next to him stood a younger man, broad shouldered, with his arms folded. He was familiar-too familiar; that was the very face he had caught fleeting looks of in moments of half consciousness.
“You’re awake,” the old man says,
