Velda's POV
Adelaide returned late after training the troops, the bronze wolf-head gates slowly shutting behind her.
I stood in the shadows of the moonstone citadel, catching the lingering cedar pheromones from her armor.
The bonfire's glow cast everything in a dim, yellow-orange light.
"You could at least put on a better show," I said. "The Davidson family's reputation is being dragged through the mud because of you."
The shadow-wolf emblem on her pauldron glimmered.
She gripped her silver spear, the moonstones embedded in the weapon—passed down from Alpha Bentley—pulsing rhythmically.
As her golden eyes shifted to the vertical slits of a wolf's gaze, the not-yet-healed mark on the back of my neck flared with pain.
My wolf trembled, cowering in the corners of my mind.
That only m
