ra

on Outpost. We stumbled into a courtyard of trampled, bloody snow. The air here was thi

nce slammed down over the courtyard. It wasn't just

t, looking less like a man and more like a god of ice and violence. Kaelen Blackwood

her whimpered, dragging my broken father down into the snow with her. Thei

cs and the magical weight of an Alpha's command. I was the only one left standing,

s. His eyes were a piercing, unnatural i

ut, deep and resonant, cracking through the frigid air like a whi

k stone quarry at dawn, or hunt the tundra beasts for your rations. Women, the elderly, and th

trembling frame, and my own frail, *wolfless* stature. A flicker of absolute dismissal cross

e outcast's hovel by the pe

cariously against the trash heaps. The wind howled straight through its massive gaps. With my father's catatonic state and our starve

his black pelt swirling, ready to re

t, overriding my survival instincts. I ducked slightly be

hispered through chattering teeth, the

he massive

in his stride, but the shift in the air was i

Blackwood tur

lves, and locked onto me with terrifying precision. My heart seized. *He heard me.*

y neck. I expected a brutal punishment. But as I stared back, refusing to lower my chin despite the terror clawin

faded away. There was only the blizzard, the tyran

have imagined it. He didn't say a word. He simply gave me one last,

shoving Mason hard betwe

stench of the garbage heaps growing stronger until we were thrown to the frozen ground in front of the leaning, skele