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Around us, the landscape shifts gradually, the frozen ground becoming slightly less frozen. While the Northern Kault pack gets maybe two months of “summer” in which the ground is just tillable enough for us to plant our hardy vegetables, the Southern Kault pack gets around four months of summer, and one of them is even warm enough that it doesn’t snow at all during that time.

The differences are marginal, but still noticeable when I spend most of my time up north.

We head south together, and I watch the details on either side of us slowly change, more berry-laden bushes appearing. Snow a little less thick. The people here are a little softer, too, their climate treating them just the slightest bit more kindly than ours does.

The trip takes a little more than an hour, and we only stop once for a tricky stream-crossing. Other than that, we’re running at full speed, following the drifting trail of Denvil’s scent ahead of us.

There was no time for me to ask Zade about what, specifically, happened, but the closer we get to the scene, the better idea I have of why we’re making an emergency trip out this way. The scent of blood drifts on the air, hot like it’s just recently been spilled. Metallic. A smell that settles right in your throat and stays there, lingering.

Among it are other scents—the Southern aroma that Denvil carries on his skin. The sharp, weighty hit of fear. Anger. Fighting. Claws ripping through flesh, hot organs steaming on the frozen ground.

And then we come around the corner of the trees and see the carnage for ourselves. Several shifter bodies—at least a half-dozen—strewn out over the snow, still hot.

Denvil sits completely still, his back to us. He’s still in his wolf form, copper-brown fur glinting as the sun peeks out from behind the clouds.

Typically, when he’s shifted into his wolf form, the man can’t sit still. Running off, chasing butterflies, challenging any of us to a wrestling match. We always try to resist, but it’s hard to tell your wolf no when another is circling, nipping playfully.

Now, though, he’s unlike I have ever seen him.

We’re near the pack boundary between South and West packs, but firmly in his territory still. The shifters on the ground—some of them wolves, some shifted back—are all from Denvil’s pack. It’s a fact we all know instantly, either from their scent, copper hair, or the combination of all the details at the scene.

My stomach sinks.

“Denvil.” Brack is the first to shift back, to walk tentatively toward our friend, his hand outstretched. “I’ll call for my people.”

Brack shifts back into his wolf form and takes off in the direction of the boundary line. Zade and I, shifted back into our human bodies, stand behind Denvil, surveying the scene.

It’s not often that I’m frozen like this. I stand completely still, feeling only a modicum of what Denvil is experiencing through the allyship bond. The grief. The anger. The responsibility.

When you’re the alpha of a pack, the king of a territory, every life lost falls on your shoulders. Something like this—a violent, sudden attack—hasn’t happened since before our fathers brokered peace between the territories decades ago, as young kings themselves.

For the first time in a long time, I’m at a loss for what to do.

Then, slowly, moving with a careful step that’s typical of him, Zade begins to creep forward. When he gets to Denvil, he places his hand on our friend’s shoulder, having to reach up slightly to get his palm there. Denvil turns, letting out a loud puff of air, apparently surprised to see Zade.

They hold that stare for a moment, then Denvil lowers his head slowly, and Zade sets his forehead against the wolf’s. It hits me, at that moment, that the forehead-touching is a mourning act for the Southern pack.

Of course, Zade is exactly the man who would remember something like that.

After stepping back from Denvil, Zade creeps into the carnage, squatting down and closing the eyes of the men on the ground. I follow in his steps, setting my head against Denvil’s and fighting the wave of grief and anger that come surging up inside me at the connection.

Then, I turn and start to help Zade. There’s an outpost near the area. It’s where the shifters were stationed for watch. As Zade moves through the bodies, closing their eyes and arranging them the best he can, I shift and run to the outpost, gathering blankets and returning with them so we can cover the fallen Southern pack members.

Just as we’re finished with that, Brack returns with his men, who begin wrapping the bodies and preparing them for transport back to the Southern city center.

“Denvil,” Brack says, going to stand in front of our friend. He also presses his forehead against the copper wolf’s, then withdraws. “I assume you want these shifters taken back to the city?”

Denvil lowers his head. A nod.

When Brack’s men are off, carrying the fallen with determined, respectful hands, we return to Denvil, standing near him, staying for as long as it takes him to work through the immense, soul-crushing grief.

***

“It was Gavyn.”

It’s the first thing Denvil says after shifting back to his human form. We’ve returned to the neutral territory, back in the same meeting room we inhabited this morning, when I rushed out to save Mylah.

For the first time since seeing her in that club, something has finally happened to take my mind off of her for more than ten minutes. A tragedy. The loss of six fine shifters, my friend’s grief.