Lila woke with the taste of iron in her mouth.
Not blood—memory.
She sat upright in the narrow bed the pack had given her, chest tight, heart racing as if she’d been running. For a moment she didn’t know where she was. Stone walls. Warmth. The faint, steady hum of the packhouse settling around her like a living thing.
Safe.
The word felt foreign.
Across the room, Mira was already awake, sitting cross-legged on her own bed, eyes unfocused and sharp all at once.
“You felt it too,” Mira said quietly.
Lila nodded.
They didn’t need to explain what it was.
The air itself had changed.
It wasn’t just heightened senses—though those had sharpened steadily since Rowan welcomed them into the pack. It was something deeper. Older.
The pattern.
Korren always moved the same way before a large
