Rosalind stumbled back two steps, her face white. "Lynara, what kind of cursed thing are you holding?!"

She asked because Edwin had already received his Celestial Rank. The power of his Wolf Core shielded his body.

An ordinary weapon couldn't have come within a foot of him.

So in her mind, my blade had to be something unholy.

I raised the short blade, letting the light catch its edge. My voice was flat and cold. "Cursed? No wolf of the Abyss is worthy of wielding this."

"But you'll find out what it is soon enough."

I crouched beside Edwin's body and used the blade to carve out his heart.

"Since our dear First Beta had no heart to speak of, his heart's blood might as well serve a better purpose. A blood offering for my spirit wolf."

"Lynara, you vicious monster!"

Rosalind's eyes went red with rage. She called on her wolf's power and lunged at me.

But at the critical moment, a Sovereign Guard beside her seized her arm and hauled her back, his hand trembling as he pointed at the spectral shape coalescing above Edwin's corpse. A translucent wolf, black as the space between stars, lapping at the blood with a tongue made of violet fire.

"Lady Rosalind, look. Your junior sister's spirit wolf... something's wrong with it. It's drinking the blood on its own."

Rosalind didn't care. She scoffed. "Cursed relics never play by the rules. What's so strange about that?"

The soldier shook his head frantically. "No, you don't understand. You've only just ascended to Celestial Rank."

"In all the millennia since creation, there has only ever been one spirit wolf that craves the heart's blood of powerful wolves..."

Rosalind blinked, clueless. "What spirit wolf?"

The soldier's lips trembled around two words: "Soulreaper."

Rosalind's jaw dropped. The color drained from her face.

But before she could gather her wits, a voice split the air from the void above, heavy with authority that needed no anger to terrify. An Alpha aura descended with it, thick and suffocating, pressing against every wolf present like a hand on the back of the neck.

"Silence!"

"I destroyed that Primordial She-Wolf with my own hands. Soulreaper was shattered by my power. It no longer exists."

"You will not spread such baseless fear!"

I knew that voice. I knew it the way you know the sound of your own heartbeat. Fenris Voss. My enemy for as long as I had drawn breath.

And the one who had wounded me deepest of all.