The words hung stifling, like a weight pressing down on my neck.
A claiming rite.
There were old things in the wolf world people pretended no longer existed. Laws written before roads, before guns, before men hid pack business under biker cuts and fake human paperwork. I had heard whispers of claiming rites growing up. They were not ceremonies for children.
And Varak had my son in a blood chapel.
The war room seemed to shrink around me. The maps on the wall, the armed riders, the old table, the phone with Kael’s image still bright on the screen — all of it pressed in too close. I forced myself to breathe through my nose and not through my mouth. Panic had a smell. Wolves could read it. More importantly, Ronan could read it through the bond if I let it slip too far.
I would not give h
