Chapter 22: The Departure

The light in the central hall faded into an eerie, solemn quiet.

My eyes remained closed, but the world around me did not disappear; it simply transformed. The physical weight that had crushed my lungs for twelve long years vanished entirely. The coldness in my chest—the

Chapter 23: The Judgment

By dawn, a thick, freezing fog had settled over the Sterling Pack Territory.

The central plaza of the Pack Compound was packed with thousands of pack members, standing in total silence under the gray morning sky. The atmosphere was heavy with shock and collective shame. Ne

Chapter 24: Echoes in Cedar

The dawn brought no warmth to the Sterling Pack Compound.

A heavy, suffocating frost blanketed the stone training grounds, matching the dead quiet that had taken hold of the territory. The thousands of pack members who had witnessed the public banishment of Victoria and