Lowen
"He was across the pond," Axel said.
He didn't say it like a question. We stood at the far edge of the training field while the pack ran morning drills behind us, wolves in half-shift moving through patterns of speed and strike, a blur of bare feet and flashing teeth and the grunt of bodies meeting in the dew. The sun had barely cleared the pines. Long gold light poured across the grass, and the air still tasted faintly of silver and lavender from the night before, as though the pond had breathed out and the whole valley had breathed in.
I hadn't slept. I'd walked back from the water at dawn with Celeste's scent on my jacket and my pulse still running, and had lain on my bed in my boots, staring at the ceiling, replaying every second. Her mouth. Her hands. The golden thread pulled
