GUNTER POV
The morning started like all the others, on the training field. Knuckles cracking pads. Feet beating dirt. Wolves moving like a living engine because I’d taught them to. Xander called counts—measured, calm. Gavin drifted the line like a shadow with opinions, tapping hips, fixing stances, making boys into weapons without raising his voice. Off to the side, Gage ran his response unit through a rescue chain—eleven bodies moving as one, lifting, bracing, passing a weighted stretcher without letting it dip.
Good. Better than yesterday. Still too many eyes drop before impact; still a half-step of hesitation when the hit comes from the blind side. We’d fix it. That’s what we did here now—see the weakness, repair it, make it part of the strength.
“Again,” I said.
They went again.
I
