Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 21 - Chapitre 25

Chapter 22: The Stranger at the Gate**Ava**Snow fell like the gods were trying to bury us alive. Thick, wet flakes clung to fur, lashes, the edges of my hood until the whole damn world muffled into white silence. Shadowfang scouts moved in pairs along the outer wards, breath fogging, eyes sharp for Eclipse Covenant filth. They found him instead. I stood half a step behind Kael at the inner gate, Thorne and Hammer flanking him like the twin hammers they were. The stranger stumbled out of the treeline just after dusk—lean, ragged cloak crusted with ice, dark hair streaked white. Hands raised empty. His scent hit first: wolf, yes, but faint. Desert dust under pine. Something else that made my changing blood twitch. Renn and the pure wolf Corren brought him in at spearpoint. Protocol. No chances this close to migration. The stranger dropped to his knees in the snow without being ordered. Not weakness. Respect. Voice soft, accent smooth as river stone. “My name is Vikram. Rogue

Chapter 24: The Coil Tightens**Ava**The days bled into one another like wounds that refused to clot. Each one shorter than the last as the sun crawled earlier behind the Ironspine peaks, leaving the world in that blue-gray hush that made every shadow feel like a waiting mouth. Snow piled against the lodge walls until the paths became narrow trenches of packed ice and buried rage. The pack worked from the first gray smear of dawn until the stars burned cold—sledges groaning under loads, meat smoking until the air stank of fat and pine, furs rolled tight, blades flashing silver every time the firelight caught them.No one spoke of fear anymore. They spoke of routes. Of weight limits. Of which pups could walk and which ones would ride wrapped in wolfskin. But fear lived in the silences. In the quick glances over shoulders. In the way warriors now traveled in fours instead of threes, measuring the space between bodies like it might swallow someone whole.And in the bond, it thrummed lik