Damian returned to Ashwood three hours later, bloodied but alive, the hunting pack's soldiers gone as suddenly as they'd appeared, retreating into the dark once their leader apparently judged the cost of continuing not worth the trouble. He arrived at the pack house limping, one arm wrapped tight against his ribs, and found Elena already awake in the medical wing, her shoulder stitched and bandaged, Kade dozing in a chair beside her bed.
Neither of them said much that first night. There wasn't room for it, not with Rhea fussing over bandages and Magnus dictating instructions for herbal poultices from his own cot two beds over, still recovering from his earlier injuries on the forest path. But Elena caught Damian's eyes across the room more than once, and each time, the look on his face to
