e the voice of the mountain itself. The pack hunters who moments before had been circling for the kill

er interested in his prey. His lips pulled back in a snarl, but it was directed a

irling blizzar

m as if the wind and snow parted before it, each paw print melting through the frozen ground with impossible depth. Its coat seemed

nce. Spirits of the first wolves, blessed by the Moon Goddess herself and charged with protecting the sacre

intelligence burning in those silver ey

, her body trembling with more than just cold. Every instinct screamed at her t

promise of easy prey-broke formation. He lunged at the direwolf with a

d crush bone closed around the hunter's throat with surgical precision. The cr

n the frigid air. The hunter's body went limp instantly, his golden

ropped the first corpse and spun with fluid grace, one massive paw catching the attacker across the sku

ves facing something that made their pack training seem like children's games. They spread out in a lo

n the old pack language, a

attacker while its claws raked across the belly of another. The third managed to land a blow that should hav

thirty second

in dark pools that reflected the aurora light. The direwolf stood among the carnage, breathin

silver eyes t

he size of any wolf she had ever seen, with shoulders that came up to her chest. Its teeth

fore this monster decided she looked like dessert. But her

. Snow crunched softly under paws the size of dinner plates. Its breath misted in the cold, and she could smell t

ugh to touch, the mas

ered it

k. In something that looked impossibly

te physical, not quite emotional-like an invisible cord stretching tight between her heart and the creature before her. Her severed conn

he blizzard continued to rage around them, but it felt distant and unimportant. The only things that m

nto her bones, reminding her that she was still bleeding, still hypotherm

t she could feel the warmth radiating from its massive frame-and made a sound

t as barely more than a whisper. "I don'

ancient silver eyes. Then it did something that should

ch the freshly burned skin there. And somehow, without words or pack-speech or any

n waitin