Evander's POV
The smell hit first.
Gunpowder. Burned flesh. Blood. Sharp and metallic, laced with coffee and panic.
I froze for half a breath, brain trying to make sense of the sound of people screaming where, seconds ago, there'd been nothing but clinking glass and low conversation.
Then the first wolf went down.
A flash of silver—real silver—and the sound he made still echoes in my skull. Smoke curled from the hole in his chest, the stench of seared fur rising with the hiss of his dying shift. My heart lurched; not from pity, but from shock. Silver. They'd brought silver. Whoever planned this knew exactly what we were.
Go to her.
The command slammed through me from the inside, my wolf's voice cutting through the gunfire. He didn't care about strategy, about who was dying around us. Only about her.
His focus was a single pulse in my head—Odette. Find her. Shield her.
