Aveline
The North Ridge was a graveyard of silence. The scent of ozone, burnt rubber, and the metallic tang of Matteo’s blood hung in the air like a physical weight, suffocating the forest. I crouched in the thicket, my chest heaving, the "shimmer" in my vision beginning to fracture into jagged, painful sparks.
I had watched them take him. I had watched Ezra, the man who had sat at Matteo’s table and called him brother, kick my mate’s ribs while he was bound in silver. I had watched the Executioners drag the Alpha of the Black Fangs into the back of a blacked-out van as if he were nothing more than a carcass.
My hands were buried in the frozen dirt, my knuckles white. Move, Aveline. Move.
The Guardian pulse in my blood was screaming, a high-frequency vibration that told me the forest w
