LOGINThe Shadow Fang wolves hit Magnus's flank like a battering ram of fur and fangs.Marcus led the charge in his grey wolf form, his massive body slamming through the shield wall and scattering soldiers like leaves in a gale. Gideon followed close behind, his dark wolf tearing through the broken formation with silent, lethal precision, jaws closing around throats and ripping before his victims could scream.The night erupted into a symphony of violence, snarls, the wet snap of bone, the gurgling choke of men dying with their throats torn open.Magnus's soldiers, already battered from Natasha's traps and archers, broke formation entirely. Some tried to flee back toward the tree line only to find more wolves waiting. Others dropped their weapons, falling to their knees in desperate surrender that the wolves ignored, because tonight was not a night for prisoners.Natasha pressed forward through the chaos, her blade still singing. A soldier lunged at her from the left, and she sidestepped, d
Natasha crouched behind the barricade of felled timber, her breath steady despite the ache radiating from her healing shoulder.The bond pulsed warm in her chest.Damien's satisfaction.His victory.His blood-soaked triumph bleeding through the tether like a second heartbeat.He'd won.She felt it in her bones.But the relief was fleeting because the eastern tree line had gone quiet in the wrong way, and every instinct she possessed screamed that something was coming.She turned to the warrior at her left, a young man named Torin whose hands trembled on his spear."Steady," she murmured. "You don't need to be brave. You just need to hold the line."He swallowed hard and nodded.Natasha rose just enough to scan the perimeter.The traps she'd ordered were buried beneath layers of leaves and loose soil.Pits lined with sharpened stakes.Tripwires connected to swinging log flails.Coiled snares designed to catch ankles and snap bone.They stretched across the most likely approach vectors,
The column moved through the mist like a blade sliding from its sheath.Silent.Deliberate.Lethal.Damien rode at the front, his senses stretched wide, cataloging every sound, every shift in the wind, every distant bird call that might signal movement ahead.The bond tugged at his chest, Natasha's presence a warm ember against the cold morning air, but he shoved it down.There would be time for that later.Right now, there was only the hunt.Thornwick's forward camp sat in a shallow valley three miles east—poorly positioned, poorly defended, and utterly unaware of what was coming for them.Damien had sent two scouts ahead at midnight, and they'd returned with sketches of the camp layout: tents arranged in loose clusters, cook fires still smoldering, sentries posted at the tree line but facing the wrong direction.Sloppy.Lazy.Magnus had grown comfortable, assuming his flanking force would keep Shadow Fang distracted.He was about to learn how wrong he was.Damien raised his fist.Th
The warriors settled into their positions with the practiced stillness of wolves bedding down before a hunt.Muscles ached. Bones protested the cold ground. But eyes stayed sharp—darting to shadows, tracking every rustle of leaves, every snap of distant twigs.Sleep came in fragments.No one truly rested.They couldn't afford to.Natasha moved through the camp like a ghost, checking each placement, each trap, each hidden line of defense.Her fingers traced the tripwire anchored between two oaks, testing its tension.Satisfied, she crouched beside a spike pit and adjusted the layer of leaves concealing the sharpened stakes below.One wrong placement. One glint of moonlight catching the wood. The entire snare would be useless."Too visible on the left edge," she muttered to the warrior crouched beside her, pressing more debris into place. "If Magnus's scouts are worth anything, they'll spot that. Fix it."The warrior nodded and moved without question.Her shoulder throbbed—a deep, insis
Natasha didn't wait for dawn.The eastern perimeter had held, but the attack had exposed gaps—weak points she wouldn't tolerate a second time."Rope lines between those two oaks," she ordered, pointing with her knife. "Calf height. Tripwire, not tension—too many of them came through low. I want anyone who hits the ground to stay down."A pair of warriors moved immediately, threading dark cord between the trunks.Natasha watched them work, her jaw tight, her injured shoulder throbbing with every heartbeat. She ignored it. Pain was information, not a reason to stop."Spike pits here and here."She paced the perimeter, her boots silent on the packed earth, marking positions with quick slashes of her knife against tree bark."Stagger them. No pattern. Anyone scouting from the tree line should see nothing but ground. I want them stepping into holes before they know we've been digging."Warriors scattered to obey. Shovels bit into earth. The sound was muffled, controlled. Shadow Fang traini
The camp settled into a tense hush as the moon climbed higher, its pale light filtering through the canopy in silver slivers.Warriors who weren't on watch slept in their armor, hands resting on weapons, bodies curled against tree roots and supply crates. The fires had been banked to low embers—enough to see by, not enough to silhouette targets against.Natasha hadn't slept.She couldn't.The bond thrummed with Damien's restless energy, his mind still churning through assault strategies somewhere inside the war tent, and her own body hummed with the kind of alertness that made rest impossible.She sat on a supply crate near the eastern perimeter, her knife balanced across her thighs, her green eyes scanning the darkness beyond the stake line.The night sounds were wrong.She'd grown up in Crescent Moon territory, spent years running patrol routes through dense forest. She knew what a forest should sound like at midnight.The chirp of insects.The rustle of small creatures moving throu
The ballroom no longer felt like a celebration.It felt like observation.Natasha moved through it with controlled precision, each step measured, each expression carefully restrained. The emerald gown made her feel exposed in ways armor never had, not because it was revealing, but because it was des
Natasha’s second morning as Luna of Shadow Fang began not in the training yard but in the council chamber, a stone-walled room heavy with the scent of old parchment and wolf musk. Damien had sent for her before dawn, his messenger’s knock brisk and impersonal. She’d dressed quickly in fitted trouse
Natasha stood frozen for a long moment after Damien’s silhouette disappeared through the velvet curtain. The cold night air clung to her skin, but the heat radiating from her chest—from the bond she refused to name—made her feel feverish. Her wolf, a restless presence she’d always kept tightly leas
Damien’s wolf had been clawing at his ribs for hours, a relentless, snarling pressure that made every polite smile a lie. The moment he’d walked into the ballroom and caught Natasha’s scent—wildflowers and steel—the beast inside him had lunged against its chains. Mate. The word was a drumbeat in hi







