***Sawyer***
The mountain air was thin and biting, a sharp contrast to the suffocating warmth of the cabin I’d left behind three days ago. My lungs burned with every inhale, but it was a good burn—a clean, honest pain that cut through the mental fog that had been clinging to me like wet wool for weeks.
I stood on the ridge, looking down into the valley where the rogue pack had made their stand. My boots were caked in mud, and my muscles ached with a fatigue that felt more like a cleansing than a burden.
Rainah.
She was still out there. I could feel her presence, a faint static on the edge of my senses, like the hum of a power line before a storm. The encounter on the ledge had changed everything. When I’d heard that howl—that strange, distorted, almost human cry—it had rattled me to
