The southern valley was weeping. A cold, miserable rain had begun to fall, turning the fertile black soil of the Blackwood territory into a thick, sucking mire. It was a premature spring thaw, but it brought no warmth—only a damp, clinging chill that seeped into the bones of every wolf in the pack.
Inside the grand study of the Blackwood pack house, the air was suffocating.
Caleb sat behind his heavy walnut desk, staring blankly at a map of the Grey Mountains. He had not slept in three days. The skin beneath his eyes was bruised a deep purple, and his hands shook slightly as he traced the jagged lines of the northern ravine. Without the golden anchor of his mate bond, his wolf was a wild, maddened beast, clawing at the walls of his mind, constantly howling for the pieces of his soul that
