Elara POV
The adrenaline hasn’t fully bled out of the air when Kieran finds us.
The northern wolves are gone, swallowed back into the treeline, and the pack is already settling into itself again with practiced efficiency. Wolves don’t mill around, they don’t chatter loudly, they don’t celebrate; they reset, reform patrol lines, check the boundary markers, sweep the ground for anything left behind.
It should feel like relief. Instead, it feels like the first inhale after a held breath, the one where you realize the tension isn’t gone at all, it’s simply shifted into a different shape.
Caelan stands a few paces ahead of me, speaking to patrol leaders in low tones that carry just enough weight to cut through the night wind. He’s issuing brief instruction, precise, clipped and efficient. E
