CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The night air is crisp, biting at my exposed skin as I stand on the edge of the tree line, the moon casting a silver sheen over the snow-dusted ground. It's the eve of my eighteenth birthday and the Clear Creek pack's Winter Solstice celebration, and the exhilaration for tomorrow's festivities thrums through me like a live wire. The forest around me buzzes with quiet anticipation, mirroring my own.
I tuck a stray lock of fiery red hair behind my ear and breathe in deeply, trying to quell the fluttering in my chest that has nothing to do with the impending party or the milestone it marks for me. My thoughts drift unbidden to Will—my childhood friend, my constant, the one person who can always see past my headstrong façade to the kind heart beneath.
I'm jolted from my re
