Chapter Sixty nine

The silence in the packhouse was heavy, laden with the weight of Vicky's absence. Every howl of leaves, every howl of the wind, sounded to echo her name, a phantom pain in Jessica's heart. The hunt party, dispatched with hopeless haste, had returned empty-handed, their faces etched with the same despair that gripped Jessica. They had returned with nothing but evidence that Vicky was really gone, taken by the Moon Shadow pack.

The agonizing details of what Vicky would endure, the cruel torture the Moon Shadow pack was notorious for, replayed endlessly in Jessica's mind. A visceral rage churned within her, a burning desire to claw back her friend from the clutches of those savage wolves. It was a rage directed at Mateo, a rumored curse on his neglectfulness, his naivety!

But as the days bled into weeks, her wrathfulness began to fade, replaced by an eating pang of helplessness. Mateo's guilt was not to be missed, his guilt a heavy cloak he carried with a stoic determination, quietly s