"If the forest wants a war, then by the gods, I will give it one."
Hours later, the dungeon stank of death, heavy tang of iron, blood, and rot clung to my skin even as I stood there in silence, my chest heaving from the shift. Vayne's growl still echoed in my bones, a low thunder reverberating long after the wolf receded. My claws had only just shrunk back, skin knitting itself whole again, but the memory of pain was not mine; it was theirs, the Omegas twins.
For a moment, I just stood there, shoulders tense, bare skin slick with sweat. My hands curled into fists. I had let Vayne off the leash, and the castle walls had trembled with his fury. And yet, the moment he reached across the kingdom, I had felt it. That presence. Dark, twisted, hungry. A wolf, but not one of mine. An aura steeped in malice, steeped in a kind of ancient rot I had not felt since the oldest battles of the northern borderlines. It had pulsed from the Silverback Forest.
