I ran to the window. My palms stuck to the icy sill.Wolves marched into Winterpaw’s central territory. They surrounded the mountains and filled the valleys. I squinted down at them; my breath felt too thin in my lungs, my head too light on my shoulders.It couldn’t be – no, not already – it was too soon…The armies couldn’t be here. Could they?But the pit in my stomach told me that I knew they could. Every day I’d spent here I’d been waiting: waiting for Ares, waiting for them. And in the space of half an hour I’d finally been granted both.I chewed on the inside of my cheek, leaning closer to the window. Outside, the wolves lined up in neat rows. There were less of them than I’d expected – definitely in the tens, not the hundreds – and some of them looked familiar. No, not just some – all of them did. I could pick out patterns in fur and the curl of a lip from years of living and training and fighting alongside them.“Haile?” Ares rasped. The bed groaned beneath his weight as he sh

Aliana pushed wispy, curling strands of white-blonde hair behind her ears with her single hand. The other had been lost to the cold, along with one foot and a couple of her remaining toes. It felt like such a long time ago, now, though her unsteady limp and the precarious way with which she leant on her walking stick made it apparent just how recent her brush with death had been.A shiver flayed the flesh from my back, and a prickle of unease lit up my scalp. Every breath I took felt thin and tinny, making my tongue taste oddly metallic; I decided anew that I despised waiting, with my fingers clutching the thick fabric of my cloak so hard that the bones of my knuckles showed through my skin.“You shouldn’t have followed us,” grunted Ares, when it became apparent that Aliana needed some encouragement to speak. She looked up at him then, her wide pale eyes revealing nothing. “I didn’t mean to. I was coming to speak to you anyway when you disappeared down that corridor.” She shrugged, t

The battle had begun. Without any of us knowing, the armies were upon us.I raced back to the Pack House, desperation burning through my veins and forcing my muscles to pull and push harder than they ever had before. My thoughts were a flurry of panicked bleating as I neared the mountain that, all of a sudden, felt something like home.‘Hans and Hanna are getting the Warrior Wolves into position,’ Ares said to me through a mindlink. ‘I don’t trust them, but I can see them from here and, for now at least, they’re following orders.’I nodded to myself. My paws slapped against the snow. For once, I didn’t skid across it. ‘Good. That’s good. But what are we going to do about the weapon?’‘I have an idea. Just – just get back here.’ He paused, and I felt him squirming through the mate bond. ‘I need to see that you’re safe.’My jaw opened into an approximation of a wolfish grin. ‘You can hear me, can’t you? I’m safe and sound, Ares. I promise.’‘Don’t fight me on this. I just… I need to see

I leant against the countertop, feigning nonchalance to hide the frantic beating of my heart. I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, the black strands catching in the low light. I felt like the world was closing in around me – which, to be fair, it sort of literally was. Even in the kitchen I could hear the constant scrape of claws against wood and stone. It was only a matter of time before they broke in. No amount of positive thinking could change the reality of that.It didn’t take long for the silence to become stifling. “You wanted to talk to me?” I pressed, moving to grab my coffee mug and internally berating myself for leaving it in the dining hall with Ares. I needed something to do with my hands.Mum’s bright blue eyes were unusually wide and soft, almost doe-like in their appearance rather than tight and shrewd. “I want to make things right between us,” she said, taking a half-step closer to me before she thought better of it and stopped.I folded my arms over my chest. “So

‘We have to get the front door shut,’ I mindlinked to Ares, my jaw locked in a snarl as I shoved and clawed at the wolves surging towards the entrance to the Winterpaw Warrior Pack House. ‘There aren’t enough of us to fight a battle on two fronts.’I couldn’t feel the cold I knew must accompany the snow swirling through the air. We were so tightly packed, funnel-necked as we forced our way outside, bloodied and bruised and sweaty.‘I didn’t think they’d turn on us,’ Ares muttered, more than to himself than to me. ‘Not so soon, anyway. I thought we had a chance–’‘Don’t panic about it.’ I forced my mental voice to sound stronger than I felt. ‘All we can do is deal with what we’ve got. We still have a chance, Ares. We just need to buy Annia and Aliana some more time.’‘You’re right.’I looked around for him, but I’d lost him to the battle. My heart beat loudly in my chest. I could still hear him; he was okay. He had to be.‘Always am,’ I teased – and a tail smacked me around the head, m