"What's wrong?" Vardis asked, his voice instantly dropping its playful tone, replaced by a sharp, lethal edge. He stood up from the armchair, his heterochromatic silver-and-gold eyes tracking the sudden terror on my face.
I swallowed hard, my hands shaking as I held out the phone. "It’s... it's a message from Ethan. They’re activating it."
"Activating what?" Vardis demanded, stepping closer, his massive presence anchoring me as my world began to spin.
"An oath," I whispered, the memory rushing back, cold and suffocating.
"When I first came back from the wild, I was so young, so desperate for the love of my family. I would have done anything to make them accept me. One night, my father brought out an ancient pack ritual dagger. They made me prick my finger and bleed onto a parchment, s
