The first betrayal didn’t come from the border.
It came from inside.
Lyra felt it before anyone spoke. The bond tightened subtly as she crossed the inner courtyard the next morning, not with pain but with unease. The air tasted different today. Not colder, not warmer. Just… watchful. Like the compound itself had learned how to hold its breath.
Tyler walked beside her, his presence steady, his gaze moving in patterns she was starting to recognize and not scanning for danger the way a wolf did when something was stalking in the woods, but scanning for people. For glances. For where attention gathered and where it scattered.
Training continued around them. Wolves sparred in circles, bodies blurring in half-shift. Guards rotated at the gates. Orders were followed. Everything looked like ro
