Alistair — POV
Cold iron burned against my wrists.
Moonveil restraints—the only damn metal in existence that could hold something like me. Wolf-forged. Silver-infused. Designed to suppress shifts and slow regeneration.
My skin sizzled where they touched me.
"Again," Elder Voric snarled, pacing in front of me. "What did you awaken?"
Blood slid down my jaw from the last punch. I spat it onto the stone floor between us.
"Go to hell."
Voric grabbed me by the hair, yanking my face up to his.
"You broke the wards. You tore open something ancient. You think we wouldn't feel that?"
I smiled—sharp, bloody. "If I'd 'torn open' anything, you wouldn't be standing here."
He slammed my head back against the stone pillar.
The world rang.
But even through the haze of pain, something flickered across my senses—distant, faint, familiar.
A tremor.
A whisper.
A breath I recognized deeper than my own heartbeat.
Sarafina.
My spine went rigid.
