***Rainah***
By the time we reached Shademoon, the sky had turned the color of old bruises.
Smoke rolled over the valley in thick, dark ribbons, hiding the moon and staining the snow gray. The pack house stood at the center of it all, its stone walls scarred, its eastern tower burning, its iron gates hanging crooked from their hinges.
I stopped at the edge of the trees.
Behind me, my pack gathered in silence.
Jaxon stood at my right, blood drying along his jaw. Lila was on my left, gripping a short blade in each hand. The others formed a loose line behind us, exhausted from the climb but alert, their eyes fixed on the destruction below.
No one spoke.
They did not need to.
We could smell the battle from the ridge.
Blood.
Smoke.
Fear.
And beneath it all, the foul, oily scent of t
