~Lucas POV~
The last battle started the way the worst ones always do, without adequate warning and at the worst possible hour.
Four in the morning, when the body's defenses are at their lowest and the mind requires deliberate effort to achieve the clarity that comes automatically at any other time of day. The northern faction had held the ceasefire for two days. The eastern contingent had held it for one and a half. The southern remnant, the group with the least to lose and therefore the least incentive to honor anything, had never fully committed to it.
They came over the southern wall at four in the morning with forty wolves and a coordination that told me someone had been planning this during the ceasefire rather than simply holding position.
Matteo hit my arm once. I was already moving.
"Eastern flank," he said.
"I have it," I said. "You have the center."
"Reyes's people are responding from the north," he said. "They will be on the right within three minutes."
