The storm broke at dusk.
The sky turned grey as the winds blew across the ridgeline and thunder snarled like wolves above. Kael stood at the brink of the cliff with his cloak blowing behind him and his gaze on the forest beyond.
The trees below were sending up dense columns of smoke.
Not the kind from wildfires.
The kind from marching torches.
They were here.
Kael didn’t move when I joined him.
I had no cloak. Just the black dress he made me wear when he claimed me as his equal before the pack—woven from wolf fur and blood-thread, marked with his crest at the throat. The collar still circled my neck like a crown. I didn’t need armor anymore.
I was the threat.
“They crossed into the eastern valley twenty minutes ago,” Dren reported, voice tight. “One hundred strong. Banner of Hous
