Mira had been walking for hours.
Not fleeing.
Not wandering.
Returning.
She was going home—to her parents’ estate, the land where she had grown up. The stretch of territory straddled two packs, claimed by neither. Neutral ground by design, dangerous by nature.
It lay in the northern reaches of Wyoming, equidistant from the borders, a forgotten spine of earth that had never bowed to crown or council.
The land remembered her.
And she had come back because she had run out of places that didn’t.
Suddenly, she stopped.
Mira howled.
The howl vibrated through her chest like something alive, scraping its way free.
It was rage—raw and guttural, a primeval scream.
The surge of this newborn's power rolled through the greater web of wolf consciousness like a shockwave. A first shift. Insti
