The forest surrounding Moonflare was quiet, deceptively calm, but I could feel the lingering energy of what had happened. Lydia was gone, her hold shattered, her magic dissipated, and yet the consequences of her manipulation were still echoing through the pack. It was one thing to defeat her in the forest, one thing to free the guardians and sever her control over the twins, but it was another to come back to Moonflare and face the fallout.
The moment we stepped through the threshold of the pack’s territory, I could feel eyes on us. Pack members I had trusted before, faces I had smiled at, now shifted uneasily as I walked past. Their energy was hesitant, fragmented, layered with guilt, fear and uncertainty. It was subtle, almost invisible to anyone who didn’t pay attention to the currents
