The air was sharp, carrying the bite of frost and the scent of pine.
I hadn’t planned to run this far.
But I couldn't sleep and I needed a run to clear my head.
But my feet had carried me, almost on their own, past the hunting paths, through the thinning trees, until the snow beneath me was streaked with old stains I could still see in my mind.
The clearing was too quiet.
The kind of quiet that didn’t feel like peace, but like something was holding its breath.
I knelt where the traitors had fallen.
The snow was clean now, but I could still see the blood, the twisted bodies, the flies that had gathered.
It wasn’t just them. It was the warriors from that other pack too. Same precision. Same merciless efficiency.
Three wolves. Controlled. Relentless.
Not rogues.
Monsters.
I swal
