ELLIE‘S POV
The scream cut through the trees like a blade. Not a howl neither was it a warning. It was human, raw and terrifying.
I was on my feet before I even realized I’d moved. My body reacted faster than my thoughts, the wolf in me already leaping toward the source. Jovani stirred beside me, still groggy from sleep, but one look at my face and he was moving too.
“Ellie?” he called after me, but I didn’t answer.
I knew that scream.
I knew that voice.
It was Maela‘s.
The morning was still cloaked in pre-dawn mist as I sprinted through the trees, branches whipping past me. My heart pounded against my ribs, not from exertion, but from dread. Deep, gnawing dread.
Please. No. Not her… not my Maela.
I reached her cabin just as the scent hit me. Earthy, bitter and rotten.
A scent I
