I tried to move, but my bones were frozen stiff with horror.
The eyes of my packmates had turned white as snow. They howled and raged and became abominations—half man, half wolf, their minds torn between.
I knew that it was a vision, but it felt more real than my own flesh and fur.
All around me, people were running as wolves hunted and slew anything that walked on two legs. An image rose in the flickering firelight—Casey’s corpse burned and tattered, lying in a pool of blood.
My stomach churned, and I wanted to retch or howl or even just cover my ears with my paws. Laurel’s distraught cries from the darkness were so real, they left me quaking by the fire.
The vision shifted, and the crumbled stones of ruins entwined with trees rose around me, roots wrapping around rusting cars and the bones of the dead.
Then the image disappeared, and I came back to reality with a gasp.
The loremaster put down her hands. “The Dark God may slumber, but now you have seen his dreams.”
All around me, wolves were down on their paws, whimpering and scared.
Yet Jaxson rose and stood, solemnly staring into the fire. His presence flowed over me, hotter than any flame. I didn’t understand his power to speak to us without words, but I felt the message burn into my soul: We will be vigilant, and we will defy.
His strength building within me, I rose to stand at his side. All around us, the pack clambered to their feet until a hundred wolves stood waiting in silence for what one day might come.
The return of the Dark Wolf God.
That night, I slept restlessly, and when I dreamed, it was not of Jaxson or Kahanov or the bikers, but of him.