All Chapters of Red Wolf's Guardian: Chapter 51 - Chapter 55

CoralThe red wolves had gathered beneath the oak tree near the edge of the compound.Raina sat with her back against the trunk while Vivian leaned beside her beneath a blanket. Talia had stretched her legs across the grass and rested her head against Cammie’s shoulder, looking too tired to care that Cammie occasionally shifted and nearly knocked her off. Elizabeth and Stephanie sat close enough that their knees touched. Grace and Ariel had their hands clasped loosely between them, while Sophie watched the compound with the same quiet attentiveness she had carried through the connection during the battle.They looked exhausted.Raina’s gaze moved over me first as Duncan and I approached.“You look terrible.” She said, stating the obvious.“Thank you.”“You’re welcome.”Cammie gave a weak laugh. “At least she’s honest.”Duncan’s hand settled against my back. “She needs to sit.”“So do you,” Vivian replied.He looked toward her.Vivian lifted one shoulder beneath the blanket. “I can sti

DuncanBy late afternoon, the compound no longer looked like a battlefield from a distance.The worst of the blood had been washed from the central clearing. Broken fencing had been collected into organized piles, damaged doors had been removed from their hinges, and temporary posts now marked the sections of the boundary where the original stones had cracked beneath the force of the attack. Wolves moved steadily between the buildings with tools, food, medicine, and messages from the patrols. From the tree line, someone approaching for the first time might have believed the pack had already recovered.They would have been wrong. Damage was easier to hide when everyone remained busy. Grief was not.It appeared in the pauses between tasks, in the way a guardian stopped outside the old meeting hall before entering to help prepare Marcus and Daniel for burial. It lived in the lowered voices of wolves who had survived the southern line and in the empty place near the training grounds where

CoralThe meeting slowly dissolved into smaller conversations, though no one seemed particularly eager to leave. The battle was over, but there was a strange feeling settling over all of us, as though we had crossed an invisible line and were only beginning to understand what waited on the other side. Lately, nearly every decision had been made in response to the vampires. We had adjusted patrols because they were watching, strengthened protections because they were testing us, and prepared for battle because we knew they would eventually come.For the first time since I had returned after being taken, we were no longer simply reacting to their plans.We were beginning to shape our own future.I remained seated for several moments after most of the others had stood, my fingers tracing absent circles across the worn wooden tabletop. Duncan stood beside me with one hand resting lightly against the small of my back while he spoke quietly with Callan and Anders. The three of them were alr