The storm didn’t hit all at once.
It came in whispers: reports from patrols, snapped words in the hallway, the way pack-scent shifted from raw argument to something tighter, more focused.
By sunset, the air in the den tasted like metal.
“Two more kids,” Bryn said, dropping into the chair opposite me at the kitchen table, scattering paperwork. “Woke up with half-shifted claws and no memory of dreaming, but they were both mumbling about a ‘bright path’ and ‘old promises’.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Names?”
He rattled them off. I recognized one from the training ring, another from the clinic last month.
“And three of the older teens skipped patrol to ‘walk the woods’ after the meeting,” he added. “Guess where they went.”
“The circle,” I said.
“The circle.” He took a swallow of
