**JAX POV**
The road to the human town felt longer than it should have. Every step, every breath, carried the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. Crescent Vale had sent me and my warriors to protect the humans, but I couldn’t shake the unease crawling along my spine. Something was off.
I had a bad feeling from the start, but I pushed it aside. The humans were waiting. They didn’t know how many of us there were, how strong we were, or what we could do. And I wasn’t about to let them find out the hard way.
The first sign that something was wrong came in the form of a lone figure sprinting toward us from the forest. One of our own warriors…Tobin…arrived just in time to catch me before I entered the outskirts of the town. His chest heaved, his eyes wide.
“Alpha Jax!” He shouted. “Sto
