"Over here!" Seraphina's voice cut through the ghastly silence. "I've found something!"

Elara hurried over to where her friend crouched beside a hastily dug pit, dread coiling in her belly. She peered over the edge and felt her stomach lurch.

Crammed into the crude grave were the broken, battered bodies of her missing packmates – those unfortunate souls who had been taken as hostages by Asher and his rogues. The vacant, terror-stricken eyes of the dead seemed to bore straight into Elara's soul.

"Spirits preserve us..." The words escaped her lips in a strangled whisper. "What kind of monster does this?"

Seraphina shook her head slowly, her face etched with...