GABRIEL
The air in the council chambers was thick with the scent of old parchment, damp stone, and the suffocating musk of ancient men who had forgotten what it felt like to have hearts that beat for anything but power. I stood at the head of the oak table, my knuckles white as I leaned against the grain, staring down the five Elders of the Lune Noire.
Through the Silver Thread, I could feel Emma three floors below. She was moving with a frantic, beautiful efficiency, barking orders at my brothers and turning my ancestral home into something resembling a functional fortress. Her fire was a steady, blue-green hum in the back of my mind, the only thing keeping the wolf from shredding the throat of every man in this room.
"The girl is a liability, Gabriel," Elder Kaelen rasped, his silver
