The next day, Michael waited in his office, staring blankly at the papers spread across his desk. The morning light filtered through the tall windows of the pack house, but it brought no warmth—only a pale, distant glow that mirrored the emptiness gnawing at his chest. He had been waiting for Council Lucius since dawn, replaying everything that had happened in his mind, searching for answers that refused to come.
He didn’t understand what was happening to him. Ever since that day—the day he marked Kathy—something inside him had shattered. He felt the bond break, sharp and unnatural, like a thread being torn from his very soul. And then came the chaos. Elaine’s painful cry still echoed in his ears, a sound so haunting that it visited him even in sleep. The image of her collapsed form in Da
