The nightmare always started the same way. Ten-year-old Bea sitting in the sunny garden of the Archer family estate, sharing her deepest fears with her best friend Ben during a joint family gathering that was supposed to celebrate the alliance between their packs.

"What if Mom doesn't come back from her next deployment?" she whispered, her voice small with the kind of terror that only children can feel when they realize their parents are mortal. "What if she dies in battle and I never see her ...