And this tiny, newborn boy had never even been held. Not once.
He was swallowed by merciless flame before he ever knew what an embrace felt like.
Tears streamed down my face, covering every inch of it.
Seraphina looked at the charred, motionless body and let a smile play across her lips.
"The little mongrel is finally dead."
The other handmaidens beamed.
"A human-born's mongrel, tough as leather. Thank the Moon Goddess Lady Seraphina is so resourceful!"
"Exactly. One look at the pup and you can tell his lowly patrol-wolf father was just as worthless and disgraceful."
"Congratulations, Lady Seraphina, for ridding the Shadowfang Pack of this stain!"
Bathed in their praise, Seraphina lifted her chin and cast a sidelong glance at my dead child, admiring her handiwork.
Satisfaction spread across her face.
"Don't worry, little bastard. I'll find your bastard father soon enough. Your whole wretched family can reunite in death."
The words had barely left her mouth when a howl split the sky above Shadowfang territory. It was not a wolf's howl and not a man's voice. It was something older than both, rolling down from the heavens, shaking the air itself:
"What have you done?"
Hundreds of wolves, shifted and unshifted, descended on the courtyard of the Abyssal Den like a storm breaking.
The Supreme Alpha had arrived.
And with him, hundreds of the most powerful Alphas across the Six Great Packs, every one of them summoned to witness the birth of the Prophesied Alpha.
