The voice does not belong to anyone inside Moonridge.
That’s the first thing I notice.
Not the tone.
Not the words.
The absence of pack scent behind it.
Even rogues carry something. Fear. Territory. Hunger. Something human enough to recognize.
This has none of that.
Rylan steps in front of me completely now.
Not a gesture anymore.
A decision.
“Kell,” he says sharply, without looking back. “Lock the west corridor. Now.”
Kell is already moving.
Mara follows him halfway, then stops when Aria doesn’t move.
Aria is staring at the doorway.
Like she recognizes something she doesn’t want to confirm.
The ward fragments still flicker across the floor, dim and unstable, like broken glass trying to remember what shape it used to hold.
And standing in that broken threshold—
three figur
