Chapter 23

In the early morning dawn, at the village square, miles from Pearl’s cabin, the scent of blood carried on the thin, wintry breeze. It was faint, fresh, a coppery tickle in the nostrils of the lycan warrior who leaped soundlessly from the roof of one dusk-shadow building to another. It had been hours since Ethan started hunting again, and still he didn't have any idea about his real mission: to either look for the missing princess or guard the woman who saved them.p

Snowflakes fell around him like floating white ash, blanketing the village that spread out beneath him some two stories down.

Ethan crouched on the ledge and surveyed the tangle of bustling streets and alleyways. As one of the high-ranking warriors—a small cadre of lycans engaged in war against their savage brethren, the Rogues—Ethan’s primary objective was to deal death to his enemies. It was something he did with cold efficiency, a skill perfected during his more than seven centuries of existence. But down to his m