Chapter 131

• Lusia
• The woods thickened, dark, and impenetrable, swallowing any light that the moon threw into the desolation in its jagged gulps. I was crouched very low in the underbrush with my claws digging into the soft earth, the form of my wolf.
• Bristling fur accompanied a low growl rumbling in my chest as I stared across the clearing at the lone figure: a woman dressed in a rough, gray servant's smock with, a black mask across her face. The scent was wrong: sharp and pretty foreign, cutting the pine and damp moss like a knife. My wolf wanted to hurl and leap at this threat, but I held my muscles coiled and my eyes tracing every move she made.