Chapter 24 · The Throne Cracks

The altar cracked.

Not a small fracture. The whole stone slab split down the middle with a sound like a tree snapping in half. Kade's hand was still on Lyra's wrist. Her blood was still warm on his tongue from the cut she'd opened on her palm thirty seconds ago.

The pack link exploded in his head.

Silas first. Then Garrett. Then every wolf within five miles of the sanctuary, all of them slamming into his mind at once. Alpha. Alpha what's happening. Alpha the border wards are failing. Alpha there's something in the woods.

"Kade." Lyra's voice cut through the noise. She was staring at the altar. "Did you feel that?"

He felt it. A cold weight pressing down on his skull. Old. Hungry. The same presence that had been riding the edges of his curse for weeks, whispering in the fever dreams.

The Old King.

"We need to finish this." Kade pulled her toward the altar. The split stone was glowing now, a faint red light pulsing from deep inside the crack. "Now."

"Kade, if we open that seal—"

"We don't have a choice."

Footsteps behind them. Fast. Kade spun, putting himself between Lyra and the sanctuary entrance.