Chapter 60. The New Order

The Hollow Grounds still smelled of blood and burning wood when Selene turned her back on the broken Council.

Wolves knelt in ragged half-circles, some still dazed from the shock of the Rite’s outcome, others watching her with eyes full of new, raw hope. The fires guttered low around the perimeter, their smoke curling into the crimson-tinged sky like offerings to gods who no longer ruled.

Selene stood at the center of it all — heart pounding, skin slick with sweat, the silver of her bond still gleaming faintly beneath the torn folds of her cloak. The mark at her collarbone pulsed with a steady, anchoring beat, as real and alive as the breath in her lungs.

She had won.
But the real choice still waited.

She could feel it looming, heavy and urgent, like the moment before a storm broke open the sky.

Alaric stepped closer, his body brus