Rejected: The Alpha's Fatal Mistake
Kade fought at the front of Blackthorn's advance, old training and newer purpose both driving him forward through defenders who fell before his blade with a speed that spoke less to his own skill and more to the sheer desperate need driving every strike — Wren was somewhere inside this fortress, in danger real enough that a hunting horn had already sounded warning, and nothing short of reaching her mattered more in this exact moment than breaking through whatever stood between them.
Rurik's forces broke through the eastern flank first, Ironfang's mountain-trained wolves finding purchase on terrain that had stymied the more conventional assault, and within the hour the coordinated four-point