The convoy had fractured at dawn, engines growling like wounded beasts as Marcus led twenty-nine warriors and the ten trembling pups toward the royal pack’s fortified heartland. Their taillights vanished into the swirling snow, leaving Lilith’s group—Lucas at the wheel, forty warriors in tight formation, and Cassian bound in the rear—to carve a path south to Eclipse Moon. The journey was a gauntlet of frost-bitten roads and shadowed pines, the wind screaming warnings through the valleys. They stopped thrice: once to siphon fuel from hidden caches, twice to choke down jerky and stale bread under the wary eyes of scouts. Cassian never struggled against the silver-laced ropes that bit into his wrists; his compliance was a quiet surrender that gnawed at Lilith more than defiance ever could.
A
