SPECIAL CHAPTER: ALEXIS’S POV

The Brotherhood tattoos were finished. You could almost smell the fresh ink still stinging under the bandages wrapped around each initiate's chosen spot. I watched the new members file out of the main hall, some nursing sore arms, others flexing to test the tender skin. The ritual was complete. They belonged to us now, marked permanently with the twisted tree that bound them to our brotherhood.

But my attention wasn't on the boys shuffling toward the exit. It was ...