Thorne Point Of View.

The first hours after the priest confirmed the boy’s account felt like the walls themselves were closing in on me. Shadowfang had always been a place of order, of loyalty, and yet for the first time in my tenure as Alpha, I felt the weight of chaos pressing against our borders. Someone had used rumor as a weapon. Someone had killed an envoy and tried to paint me as the culprit.

I could feel it in my bones: this was no random act of violence. This was calculated, ...