[Kai's POV]
A wind kicked up without warning—a cold gust that whipped through the tall pines, making them groan and sigh as if in mourning. It carried a new scent on its breath. Something sharp and metallic, like old blood and wet stone. Mixed with the feral, unwashed odor of werewolf that was wild—not the disciplined musk of knights, but the rank, desperate stench of those who had nothing left to lose.
Then, they emerged.
Not with a rush, but with a slow, deliberate menace. Five figures stepped from the deep shadows between the gnarled oaks, their movements a blend of lethal grace and feral power. The fading afternoon light glinted off fur in a discordant patchwork of colors: the noble silver and gray of Silverhowl, the deep blue of Atlassian, and—a sight that made the fur along my own spine bristle instinctively—the familiar red and brown of Crimsonheart, twisted now into something feral and wrong.
