~Maxwell~

Losing had a smell.

I'd never known that before tonight. I'd smelled it on other wolves — that acrid, cold-sweat scent that seeped through fur and skin when the body understood what the mind refused to accept. I'd always found it contemptible. Weak. The biological confession of a creature that had already surrendered before the final blow landed.

Now I understood it from the inside.

My back was on the frozen ground, moonlight pressing down on me like a physical weight, and ...