076 | FOREVER CHANGED

I drifted through the familiar rooms, traipsing away from my parents as we reached the long dining hall that the wake was being held in. None of the places or people looked real to me. It didn’t even look like my Pack House anymore. People greeted me, but not as their favoured Young Luna anymore. Not as the bright and bold child, or the sharp and smart young woman, that I had been to them before I’d gone to the Winterpaw Warrior Pack to be with Ares.

Five wolves were dead.

On top of the ten already killed. Aliana had told me about six; another four had been taken in that time. I traced their names in my mind, picturing their faces, mourning each and every one of them. My eyes glazed as I stared at different parts of the room, seeing plates of finger food and steaming mugs of tea and coffee and half-drunk glasses of berry wine, glancing over them without taking any of it in. Families clutched each other and cried. People spoke loudly of their memories of the wolves that had died. Four