Once the heavy iron gates of the sanctuary ground shut, the once-echoing Great Hall fell into a thick, stifling silence.

Avery Monroe retreated to her chamber, the stone walls offering cold comfort. She paced the length of the room, trying to untangle the knot of Hudson’s erratic behavior before her mind frayed completely. She was utterly baffled. What was rotting the mind of the Montgomery Alpha? The Hudson she had known before his long, death-like slumber—the one who had held her with possessive, silent intensity—felt like a ghost compared to the hollow, confused predator she had seen today.

She had never known Hudson to be physically broken. A gnawing instinct,...