Chapter 17

By morning, the wind coming down from the mountains had turned bitter.

I stood at the northern border with the territory of our pack behind me and an open stretch of dead grass ahead. Beyond it, the mountains rose again, dark and jagged against the pale morning sky. Rogue territory began somewhere between those peaks.

Usually, the field separating us was empty. Today it was black. Burned patches stretched across the ground around me, smoke still rising from places where my fire had scorched through grass and earth alike, ash drifting with the wind, carrying what little remained of the creatures that had crossed our border during the night.

Calling them rogues didn't feel right. I'd fought rogues my entire life. These things had been something else.

I crouched beside one of the few bodies that hadn't burned completely. It had once been a wolf, probably — its shoulders too wide, forelegs longer than they should have been, ending in claws