XADEN POV The journey from the royal palace to the border was substantial, but nothing we wolves couldn’t handle. It had been months since I last shifted, but it still felt like second nature to me. Running on all fours as the world whooshed past me in a beautiful blur of greens, feeling the wind brush through my thick, dark fur in long, cool strokes, enveloping and entangling my body deep within the lush scents of nature. It was something I could never tire of. After about an hour of navigating the woods that stretched beyond the walls of our kingdom, Nicholas’s silver wolf barked and slowed to a stop, signaling my brothers and me to follow. We watched as he pawed at the ground, taking long and deep whiffs of the area before letting out a low grunt. The area was clear