Raelan had wasted no time walking in through the door, or portal, number three at the end of the dream visitor’s narration. He was not a man who could look death in the face and simply walk away. He was a knight. A warrior. A man of duty and of honor.

The wolf, chained and bound, did not deserve to be there.

An injustice that Raelan could relate to.

An injustice that Raelan could not ignore.

He knew he had to save the man, even before the dream visitor had spoken of such an option. Portal or not, he would’ve found his way to this mysterious isle and unchained the man the first chance he would have gotten.

It was a blessing, then, that the portal had made his travels easy—if not disorienting as his eyes focused on the many wolves already present, their mouths wrapped around the iron magic imprisoning the man.

He gave a nod, mostly to himself, as he said a tiny prayer to whatever God looked down on them all. For Vidalia, whom he hoped he would one day return to, and for the life he might never have lived were it not for the choices he had made to get here.

It was with fondness that he recounted his life in those brief few seconds, and an acceptance that if he died there today, he would be okay.

And then Raelan surged forward, his teeth aiming to grip and claw out the chains that bound that wolf—that man whose pain was palatable—in hope that once he was saved their world would be too.