Killian’s POV

The pack gathers because I tell them to.

Not because they are calm. Not because they are ready. But because when the ground shakes and the sky bruises dark and something old presses its breath against our borders, instinct still drives them to the Alpha.

To me.

I stand on the stone dais at the heart of the territory, the one my father stood on, and his father before him. The air tastes like iron and pine sap and fear held too tightly in the lungs. Wolves pack the clearing ...