Eira stood at the jagged edge of the mountain, the wind howling around her as if it, too, mourned. Her heart hammered in her chest, a wild, frantic thing, drowning out the wind, the sharp whistling air that whipped her fur and bit at her face.

Her lips parted, trembling at first, then curling as a wail tore its way up from her core.

She screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.

It wasn’t just grief. It was rage. A primal, burning rage that surged up from the deepest part of her, untamable, fierce.

Her paws clenched at the rock beneath her, dark nails digging into her palms until the skin split, but she welcomed the pain. It was a reminder that she was still here—still breathing—when everything else had been ripped away. Her cry rose again, louder this time. She screamed for the injustices done to her, to her family, for the betrayals that had carved holes in her heart, for every time she had doubted her intuition, and been lead farther down this chase like a pig with a carrot in front of its nose. She had been used by Herod. She could see that now.

And now, she was going to kill him.