POV: Ayla

The same jagged mark that appeared on the night my mother was murdered now scars the ground just outside the walls where I sleep, a chilling reminder that the alphas understand this fight runs far deeper than my father or Nova ever could. It was something ancient and merciless, and it has finally found me.

Caius calls an emergency war council without hesitation, and the four of us gather around the heavy table while he spreads the archive papers flat across the wood like battle plans.

“This faction is real,” he says, his voice steady but grave. “It stretches back centuries, operating in the shadows across countless packs,...