"The howl was not a warning. It was a promise."
The primal sound still reverberated in my chest long after its echoes had faded from the star-scattered night sky, leaving an ache that settled deep in my bones like the memory of ancient pain.
Every wolf gathered in the Academy's main courtyard had frozen in place, their conversations dying mid-sentence as supernatural instincts older than civilization itself responded to something that didn't belong. Eyes lifted toward the darkness beyond the protective walls, ears straining to catch any hint of what might follow, bodies rigid with the kind of tension that preceded either flight or violence.
That howl hadn't emerged from any throat within these hallowed grounds. It carried the wild scent of territories unmarked by Academy authority, of w
