"The victory was tainted."
VORATH'S POV
The victory was tainted. The wine tasted like ash, not the flavor of burnt wood, but the cold, bitter, dry disappointment of failure. I stood at the top of the Northern Castle's main siege tower, a structure I had commanded just hours ago. The wind was a brutal, icy knife, ripping down from the higher peaks, mirroring the sheer, catastrophic fury boiling in my chest. We had broken the lines, neutralized the command structure, and caged Alaric. As the Old Alpha Shifter, this victory should have been absolute, intoxicating.
But it was hollow. "Report!" I roared, the sound amplified by my innate Alpha power, slicing through the wind and the chaos below.
