Chapter 149

VALENTINA The night was not silent anymore. War drums beat against the horizon, low and steady, like the heart of a god waking from slumber. Rogues’ and the people of other packs’ snarls cut through the trees. Their stench, sharp and rotting, bled into the packhouse walls. Every breath I took carried the metallic taste of fear, though it wasn’t mine. It belonged to them—my pack, my people. Andres’s hand was still wrapped around my wrist, heat and command flowing through that touch. His gaze hadn’t left me since the messenger’s words. They demand for me to be surrendered. My body had gone numb at first. Surrendered? Like I was no more than a coin to be tossed, a prize for whichever hand caught it? But Andres… Andres had answered with fire. “They will learn that she belongs to me.” The words had rolled like thunder, sharp and final. The room had trembled. My father’s jaw clenched, fury and helplessness coiled in his stance, but no one else had dared to argue. And now the drums grew close