The air was heavy with tension, thick with the weight of every pair of eyes that bore into me. The whispers of my return had spread like wildfire through Moonshade — a spark leaping from one tongue to another until the entire pack was burning with it. By the time I stepped fully into the heart of their land, it was no longer a whisper but a storm.
They gathered quickly, wolves flooding into the clearing from every path, their bodies forming a living wall of hatred around me. Their voices sharpened into blades, each word hurled like a stone meant to bruise.
“The cursed one.”
“She dares come back.”
“Poisoner.”
“Traitor.”
Their cries rose like a chant, a chorus of scorn, until the very ground seemed to tremble beneath the sound. The clearing that had once been my childhood yard — the pl
