ONE QUIET AFTERNOON, after Seris did her homework, she went to the forest to breathe some fresh air. The sunlight was spilling through the canopy in soft and dappled rays. She walked over the grassy ground, letting her fingers brush the bark of the trees. This was her favorite place to breathe… away from the noise.
But the calm didn’t last when she caught a metallic scent of steel and gunpowder, and underneath it was the sour, bitter stench of a human who had been in contact with wolfsbane.
“Hunters…” she muttered.
Seris’ wolf stirred restlessly inside her.
Then a voice cut through the silence.
“Well, well. What do we have here?”
Three men stepped out from the trees, their crossbows drawn, and the silver-tipped arrows glinting in the sunlight. Their boots crunched against the dry
