Nicholas Shadowfell tore through his borderlands with the kind of speed that reminded every wolf why he was the Alpha of the largest pack in Nyros.
The run was routine. Weekly. A king surveying his territory, and his patrol scrambling to keep up.
The burn hit between his shoulder blades without warning.
His wolf stuttered mid-stride, hind legs catching on each other for a fraction.
It spread from his spine outward, along his ribs and down through to his paws. The heat of it was so far beyond any injury his body had logged that his wolf could not categorize it.
There was nothing in the forest that could produce this kind of pain, and he knew it, and the knowing made it worse because a wolf with no target has no way to fight.
The pain doubled. Tripled. Climbed past every threshold he had ever crossed in combat.
His wolf form collapsed inward, shifting back into human form, and Nicholas hit the forest floor on his knees.
