The night wind smelled like rain and iron.
I stood at the cliff’s edge where the forest broke open and the river curled away like a ribbon of shadow. Wolves were already gathering beneath the trees—my wolves—restless bodies shifting from paw to boot and back again, eyes gleaming with the erratic light of torches and the fever of the oncoming storm. Above us, the moon wore its thin, vicious crown. Almost full. Almost crimson.
Almost time.
“Breathe,” Lucian murmured, stepping up behind me. His warmth found the bare span of my shoulders, fingers bracing my arms as if he could anchor me to the earth by touch alone. Alpha heat rolled off him, contained like the blade of a knife held flat under silk. He always did that—wrap the violence soft for my sake. “You’re too still, Ayla. You only go t
