Caleb's breaths came ragged, his vision swimming as he leaned against the crumbling wall of the ruined fortress. His body ached from the last fight, but something deeper twisted inside him—a strange, unfamiliar pull that made his wolf restless.
Something is wrong.
His instincts had always been sharp, honed by years of battle, but now they wavered. His wolf wasn't snarling for blood or urging him to move. It was waiting.
A scent drifted through the cold night air—aged, familiar in a way that made Caleb's stomach tighten. His ears rang with the echo of footsteps, slow and deliberate, crunching against the debris-covered ground.
Then a voice. Low, smooth, filled with something eerily close to amusement.
"I never thought I'd find you like this."
Caleb's spine stiffened. The voice stirred something buried deep in his chest, like a key turning in a lock he didn't know existed.
