In the end, I returned to Blackpine with Alpha Aric.
Not because I accepted fate.
But because Dorran had once nearly killed him with a silver blade coated in wolfsbane.
And no one understood wolfsbane better than I did.
I told myself I was only going to help him deal with this threat.
Once everything was settled, I would leave.
But Blackpine was nothing like I had imagined.
It was the strongest pack in the West—heavily guarded, vast, and magnificent.
But Alpha Aric did not place me in some remote guest room.
He gave me an entire new infirmary.
Built for me.
Inside were herbs I could only have dreamed of in Hollowmoor.
Even the rarest antidote roots had been prepared.
On a wooden shelf against the wall sat a small wooden box carved with the same pattern as the bone pendant he h
