Slash!
Steel met sinew with a brutal hiss. A sword cleaved clean through the wolf's thick neck, sending its blood arcing across the snow. The beast, towering as tall as a man, collapsed with a final, shuddering growl, its lifeblood melting crimson trails into the white.
The man who felled it didn't even flinch.
Reuel, cloaked in a dark fur coat, chuckled as he wiped his blade clean against the creature's pelt. His laughter echoed through the wintry glade, his face a portrait of handsome cruelty, as if sculpted from ice and vanity.
He tilted his head upward toward the stone ramparts of the nearby fortress, 15 feet high, stark against the pale sky—where two women watched him with unreadable expressions.
And not just any women.
They were gems of Tenaria, paragons of beauty and power rarely seen in the same breath.
