The dawn broke cold and gray over the Valeblood Pack estate. Mist clung to the treetops, and a silence heavier than any night hung thick in the air. Within the grand hall, swords stood propped against the walls and wounded warriors lay side‑by‑side on stretchers, the morning’s catastrophe already unfolding.

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The alarm had sounded just after midnight. Rogues—massed numbers, clad in black—had struck the eastern perimeter. The scouts, led by warriors barely recovered from yesterday’s hunt, were overwhelmed. Screams of pain, crackling of branches under bodies in flight, the sickening sting of claws and teeth—it came fast and vicious.

Lucien arrived moments after the strike began. He found the...