She leaned against me, head resting on my shoulder. The contact was grounding for both of us, a silent affirmation that despite the chaos looming over us, we had each other.
“I don’t want to go through that again.” She whispered, and I could feel the trembling in her voice. The memory of her ordeal—of her brother’s betrayal, the terror, the helplessness—hung over us like a storm cloud threatening to burst.
“You won’t.” I murmured, holding her tighter. “Not if I can stop it. I’ll make sure of it.”
The rest of the morning passed in a tense, fragile calm. I kept my eyes on the horizon, listening for the council’s patrol, tracking shifts in the wind that would tell me if anyone had arrived near the pack’s borders. Every second felt like a victory, but I knew it was temporary. The council wa
