The fighting lasted three hours.

Three hours of blood and chaos in narrow hallways where wolf met wolf in brutal combat. Three hours of the synchronized pairs moving like ghosts through passages only we knew, striking from shadows and vanishing before Gideon's forces could regroup.

Three hours that felt like three lifetimes.

Now the sun hung high and indifferent while we counted our dead.

"Forty-seven confirmed losses," Caleb reported. His voice was flat, but his hands shook as he held the ...