The silence that followed the m******e on the ridge was deafening. Ten men, ten elite trackers, had been reduced to empty husks in a heartbeat. But the real slaughter was happening behind me, in the snow-choked woods of the Shadow Pack. "Look at him!" Marek’s voice was a jagged shard of glass. He was cradling Finn’s body—or what was left of it. The boy looked like a relic pulled from a tomb, his skin translucent and stretched over brittle bone. "Look at what your mate did to a child of this pack, Silas!" "Marek, move back," Silas rasped. He was leaning on his sword, his breath coming in wet, silver-stained gasps. His side was a mess of scorched fur and open meat where the Council’s rounds had grazed him. "Move back?" Jace, the youngest of the remaining loyalists, stepped forward. He did

