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“Ingrid,” Gage growled.
“Before I was forced to join Frost Fang, I lived happily in the Nightsinger Pack,” she said, ignoring the snarling alpha.
She showed a dark splotch on her forearm where an old pack mark used to be.
“I’m not happy to be pack bonded to Frost Fang, never was. But Nightsinger, ah, there was a good pack.”
Flint stepped forward and grabbed her wrist, sniffing it. “My family were refugees from the Nightsinger pack.”
“Yes, I remember your family traveling with mine to reach Frost Fang. We all hoped it would be a new beginning, a pack worthy of giving our loyalty to.”
Her frown told me what she thought of Frost Fang.
“But she,” Ingrid hooked a thumb over her shoulder at me, “was not originally from Nightsinger.”
Her statement jolted me to such a degree, it felt as though lightning had struck my body. This woman knew me? She knew where I’d come from before the Ironwood pack took me in?
“I knew your uncle Liam. He had dark hair, but when he took you in, he told me you looked just like your mother.”
“Did you know her?” I asked with my heart in my throat.
When Ingrid shook her head, my hopes crumbled. “Not really, no, but Liam told me what happened to your old pack, the Winter Wind.”
I sensed my packmates’ gazes on me, but my eyes were glued to Ingrid. “Please, can you tell me everything?” I glanced over at Gage. “Do we have time?”
“Will anyone notice your absence?” Gage asked Ingrid.
“None of them notice an old crone like me these days. I’m practically invisible,” Ingrid grumbled. “My own grandchildren rarely drop by.”
“We should still probably do the job first,” Heath hedged.
“Certainly,” she said, handing him a small USB drive that looked tiny in Heath’s large hand. “The drive is password protected, and the information is encrypted, but try not to lose it all the same.”
“Thank you,” Flint said with more sincerity than I imagined Heath or Gage could muster.
“Now, where was I?” she asked, patting my shoulder.
“You said Freya and her mother were originally from the Winter Wind pack,” Flint answered. “How did she come to be in Nightsinger, then? And why don’t I remember seeing her?”
His somber eyes fell on me, making me wonder if we’d ever met as children. But I could barely remember anything before I was adopted into the Ironwood pack, and Flint wasn’t much older than me.
“She was just a toddler then, maybe three years old? And less than a year later, Nightsinger was no more,” Ingrid pondered. “You couldn’t have been much older than her. I remember two young pups with your parents.”
“I was seven when my parents joined Frost Fang,” Flint admitted.
“Exactly,” Ingrid said, as if that settled everything. “Perhaps Nightsinger should’ve taken the fall of Winter Wind as a warning. Maybe we could’ve survived if we’d taken it more seriously, but… alas, we did not.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Denraider,” Ingrid said, as if that was explanation enough.
Why did that pack name sound familiar?
Heath met my eyes. “The Denraider pack is well-known for conquering other packs and taking what they want, leaving the refugees to the mercy of neighboring packs.”
Then I remembered. “The same pack who conquered Dawn Chaser, too?”
“The very same,” Flint confirmed.
