Asher – POV
The bastards didn’t come for blood tonight.
But they would.
And when they did, I wanted them to choke on it.
I stood in the war room now, staring at the map splayed across the stone table like the blueprint to hell itself. Symbols marked in red ink bled across the paper—watchpoints, barrier gaps, escape tunnels. Every inch of our territory was laid bare under the harsh light, and yet I still felt like we were missing something. Something big.
A silence weighed heavy on the room. Not the kind that soothed. The kind that strangled.
“Two of them were female,” Mason said beside me, voice low and laced with rage. “I could scent it when the wind shifted.”
“Didn’t smell like wolves though,” Demian added from the corner, arms folded across his chest. “Smelled like grave dirt and old magic.”
My jaw ticked. I hated that. I hated magic. The unpredictable, slippery kind that danced around instinct and twisted rules.
“What kind of magic?” I asked.
Demian shrugged. “Foreign.
