But I know. The scent, faint as it is beneath the rot and blood, tells me everything. This is the one who hurt her. The one whose poisoned claws tore into her flesh.
I think of the female alpha, one of the wild wolves that follow Daciana. The desperate way she clawed at my door, her whines frantic and urgent. I think of how I found Daciana, her body so cold, so badly injured, her blood everywhere. Too much blood. Far too much for anyone to survive.
But she survived. Barely.
Rage, white-hot and consuming, floods through me.
I reach down, my claws extending, and plunge my hand into the corpse’s chest cavity. Its ribs crack under the force. My fingers close around what’s left of the heart, cold and lifeless, and I rip it free. It turns to paste in my grip, oozing between my fingers. I cru
