INICIAR SESIÓNThe old councils had sent everything they had. Not just soldiers—beasts, constructs, things that weren't wolf or human. And at their head, a figure in a gray cloak. Voss. Still alive. Still fighting.I felt the assault through the suspended bond web like a drumbeat of terror. The valley above us was burning. The white forest screamed, its glowing trees pulsing with frantic light as the creatures Voss had brought tore through the undergrowth. They weren't wolves. They weren't even animals. They were things made of shadow and teeth, constructs of dark magic that had no minds to reach, no bonds to feel.Ilyra stood at the mouth of the pass with her blade drawn, her white wolf flickering under her scarred skin. The defenders had been fighting for six days, and they were exhausted beyond reason. Orin could barely lift his sword. Maren's shattered collarbone had turned her left arm useless. Serin's broken arm hung in its sling, and her ear was a crusted wound. But they stood. All of them."
Cain was standing at the edge of a cliff. Below him, an ocean of light. Behind him, nothing. The Luminara's voice surrounded him. "Jump."I stood in the shared dreamspace with my alphas, watching through the Luminara's vision as the Solitary stared into the void. Cain's section of the trance was different from ours. Where Bastian, Kellan, Archer, and I had been drawn into the Luminara's presence together, Cain had been pulled into a private space. A place shaped by his own emptiness.The cliff was jagged and black, a wound in the fabric of the dream. Behind him, there was nothing. Not darkness. Not light. Just absence. The void where his bonds should have been. And below him, an ocean of silver light that pulsed like a heartbeat."Why do I have to jump?" Cain's voice echoed in the vast space. "What's down there?""What you've been missing your whole life. The capacity Voss took from you cannot be restored. He cut too deep. He was too thorough." The Luminara's form materialized beside
He'd been hunting Moon-Wolves for three hundred years. And he'd never once understood what they were fighting for.I watched through the Luminara's vision as Rime knelt in the snow, his massive grey form trembling, his pale blue eyes fixed on Ilyra's scarred white wolf. The ancient alpha who had helped build the nullifying program, who had trained the Frostborn's soldiers, who had killed more of my bloodline than I could count, was weeping. Great, ragged sobs tore through his chest, and frost crackled on the ground around him.The Luminara stood beside me in the dreamspace, her expression unreadable. "I remember him. He was young when the Frostborn found him. He had the Moon-Wolf gene, latent and unexpressed. The Frostborn offered him a choice: submit to the nullifying program or die. He chose survival.""He's been empty," I said, and my voice was quiet. "Like Cain. But he filled the emptiness with killing.""Yes. And now, for the first time in three centuries, he's feeling something
Ilyra felt the shift before she saw it. The temperature dropped. The glowing trees dimmed. And something old and angry walked into the valley.I stood at the edge of the dreamspace, watching through the Luminara's vision as my aunt's white wolf raised her head and scented the air. The bond web was suspended, but I could still feel echoes. Ilyra's determination. Orin's steady courage. Maren's iron will. They were exhausted and outnumbered, and now something ancient was coming."This one is old," the Luminara said, and her voice was troubled. "Older than the Frostborn. He was one of the first to hunt us. I remember him."The figure that emerged from the treeline was massive. His fur was grey with centuries, patchy and scarred, and his eyes were the pale blue of deep ice. He walked on two legs, not four, and his movements were slow and deliberate. He was in no hurry. He had waited three hundred years for this moment."I know that scent," Ilyra said, and her voice was barely a whisper. Sh
I could feel them all—Bastian's heat, Kellan's sharp edges, Archer's steady warmth, and Cain's cold, tentative presence at the edge. We were nowhere and everywhere, and the Luminara stood among us, teaching.The dreamspace was different now. No longer the formless silver void, but something shaped by our collective presence. The ground beneath us was solid, a smooth white stone that stretched in every direction. Above us, stars I didn't recognize burned cold and bright. The Luminara stood at the center, her white hair floating around her, her ancient gold eyes moving between us."The waking is not just about my return," she said, and her voice echoed in the vast space. "It is about your transformation. The bloodline has been scattered and suppressed for five centuries. It has forgotten what it was capable of. You will be the first to remember."Bastian stood beside me, his form solid and warm. In the dreamspace, he looked exactly as he did in the physical world, scarred and massive, b
The nullifying soldiers came out of the dark without a sound, their eyes empty, their blades silver. I saw it all, even though my body lay motionless on the cold stone far below. The Luminara's dream had shifted, and now I stood beside her in a vast silver space while images of the surface played out before us like reflections on still water."Your defenders are brave," the Luminara said, her ancient gold eyes fixed on the battle. "But they are few. And the enemy is many."I watched Ilyra raise her blade at the mouth of the pass, her thin frame silhouetted against the glowing trees. "I can't just watch. I need to help them.""You are helping them. The waking power is already flowing. Every hour you hold the trance, my strength returns. But you cannot fight this battle. You can only witness."Orin stood at Ilyra's side, his sword steady despite the chaos around them. The nullifying soldiers moved like puppets, their limbs jerky but precise. They didn't speak. They didn't snarl. They ju
Two medics held me down before I could ask what was happening. The needle went in, and fire spread through my veins. I bucked on the table hard enough that the leather restraints creaked, and a strangled sound tore out of my throat that wasn't a word. One medic, a beta woman with flat grey eyes an
Silas’s boot drove into my stomach, and I folded around the pain without a sound. Ten years in this pack had taught me one thing: noise makes it worse.I hit the training yard dirt on my side, and a puff of dust coated my tongue. Silas stood over me with his sandy hair cropped close to his skull, h
Bastian's hands were still raised when the first arrow punched into his shoulder. He didn't flinch. He just looked at me—claimed, bleeding, mine—and said, "Keep your head down. No matter what." The enforcers swarmed the clearing before I could answer. Maren Holt barked orders, and her wolves fanne
They shoved Bastian into the pit before I could even stand. The crowd roared. And I felt the first blow land in my own ribs. An enforcer with a scar splitting his chin dragged me up a set of stone steps to a wooden ledge that overlooked the fighting pit. The chamber was underground, carved into th







