Sera's POV
I woke to the sound of mourning.
The den was quiet—not the peaceful quiet of sleep, but the heavy, suffocating silence of grief that settles over a place after great loss. Through the walls, I heard it: soft sobbing, low murmurs, the occasional howl of a wolf mourning their lost packmate. Each sound was a knife in my heart.
Beside me, Draven was already awake. His golden eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, his arm tight around my waist. Through the bond, I felt his grief—heavy and deep, a weight he'd been carrying alone in the darkness.
"You heard it too," I whispered.
"I've been listening for hours." His voice was rough, exhausted, scraped raw by sorrow. "Thirty-seven wolves. Twenty-one vampires. That's the count so far. Sorin brought the numbers an hour ago."
My hear
