Chapter 9 The Alpha's Decree

• The nightfall shadows spilled through the arched windows of the cavernous den, saturating the dimly flickering hearth in gloom. The dancing amber light from the smoldering embers skated across Rendell's chiseled mask in sinister dimensions, casting his leonine features into sinister reliefs as he paced before the stonework mantle like a caged predator.
• His bare feet fell in pounding, metronomic beats on the age-polished oak planks underscoring the rhythmic exhalations of his gravid breaths. The air fairly quivered around him from the virulent force field of his displeasure rippling outward in atmospheric distortion waves.
• Even his own blood - his progeny born of the same imperious lineage flowing through his massive frame - shrank from the overwhelming oppression of his presence swallowing them whole. Esker could feel their hides fairly prickling with the hackles of lupine self-preservation instincts sounded by his father's tempest of roiling hostility.