The Iron-Moon Pack didn't live in silence. Their stronghold, The Hearth, was a sprawling fortress of timber and stone built over a natural geothermal vent. It hummed with the heat of a hundred bodies, the air thick with the scent of woodsmoke, roasted meat, and the aggressive musk of dominant males.
Gideon stepped into the Great Hall, his boots tracking slush onto the dirt floor. The chatter of the pack died instantly.
At the far end, seated on a throne of silver-maple roots, was Alpha Kaelen. He was a mountain of a man, his chest crisscrossed with scars from three centuries of skirmishes. Beside him stood Bane, Gideon's younger brother, whose eyes were already narrowed in suspicion.
"The border was quiet?" Kaelen's voice was a tectonic rumble.
Gideon kept his expression a mask of stone. "Too quiet, Alpha. The leeches are pulling back into the spires. I tracked a scout to the Silver Run, but the scent died in the water."
The lie tasted like ash. He could still feel the phantom vibration of Morwenna's voice—Then come and find me, Wolf. It was a haunting, melodic pull that made the heat of the Hall feel stifling and crude.
"You let a shadow slip away, brother?" Bane stepped forward, his lip curling. He circled Gideon, his nose twitching. "That's unlike you. You're the best tracker we have. Or were you too busy admiring the moonlight to catch a blood-drinker?"
Suspense tightened in the room. Gideon didn't flinch, though his claws threatened to break through his skin. "If you think you can do better, Bane, the frost is still thick. Go freeze your ego in the woods."
"Enough!" Kaelen slammed a fist onto the arm of his throne. "The Sanguine Coven is preparing for a Purge. My Seers feel the shift in the wind. If they are retreating, it is to sharpen their fangs."
Kaelen leaned forward, his amber eyes—so similar to Gideon's, yet stripped of all mercy—locking onto his Beta. "Return to the cathedral ruins tonight. If the scout returns, I don't want a report. I want a heart. Bring it to me dripping, or don't return at all."
Gideon bowed, his jaw tight. He was a soldier of the Iron-Moon, born to kill the dead. But as he turned to leave, the image of the pale girl with the violet eyes burned in his mind. He wasn't going back to kill her. He was going back to warn her.