SERAPHINA’S POV
Surprise flickered for only a heartbeat before the rogues lunged.
Seabreeze responded in the same instant, swift as a pulse.
The woman who sprang between the rogues and me moved with the untamed grace of the sea itself: fluid, unstoppable, and utterly merciless.
She soared through the air, then struck—her shape flickering between human and wolf with effortless mastery. Silver gleamed. A rogue crashed down, sand bursting beneath him.
That was the moment everything changed. One breath, I was pinned against stone and wind; the next, the tide crashed back so fiercely it felt as if the world itself had tipped.
“Fall back!” someone shouted.
Too late.
Seabreeze reinforcements erupted from shore and trees, crashing into the rogues like a living wave—silver, slate, stormy blue-gray forms colliding with snarling precision.
Claws slashed, bodies slammed, sand fountained. The air grew heavy with the sharp tang of blood and salt.
