All Chapters of Red Wolf's Guardian: Chapter 41 - Chapter 43

DuncanThe clearing remained quiet for longer than I expected after Elijah finished speaking, though the quiet did not feel like peace. It felt like calculation, the kind that settles over a group of people when everyone realizes the problem in front of them is larger than any of them had initially assumed. I kept my hand on Coral’s shoulder, partly because I needed to feel that she was steady and partly because the faint hum of the boundary still moved through her in a way that made it clear she was not entirely present in the same way the rest of us were. I could feel through the mate bond that she was here but distance, almost like she was sleeping or in a trance. Her hand had finally lifted from the boundary stone, but the connection had not disappeared. If anything, it seemed stronger.

DuncanThe moment Coral said the attack had started, the entire compound shifted.It wasn’t panic that moved through the wolves, but instead it was recognition. The kind that settles into your bones when something you have been preparing for finally arrives, not as a possibility, but as a certainty.No one hesitated. The wolves along the perimeter adjusted immediately, tightening their positions without needing direction. Patrol routes collapsed and reformed into defensive lines. Guardian wolves moved outward in coordinated pairs, filling space with practiced precision, while others shifted inward to reinforce the compound’s interior.They were ready. They had always been ready. They had just been waiting for the moment when readiness turned into action. We had prepared for this day without knowing what this day actually was going to be, and now we were facing the risk head on.“Positions,” I said, my voice carrying across the clearing, steady and controlled.Callan picked it up with