Marcus knew something was wrong before he opened her door.
It was the smell — or rather, the absence of it. Arvella's room always carried the faint, inexplicable scent of moonflowers and wet earth, a scent so subtle that most pack members couldn't detect it. Marcus could. He had been detecting it since the night he found her in the hollow between the guardian oaks, wrapped in witch silk and starlight.
This morning, the scent was gone. And the window was open.
"Bianca." His voice was calm. Eighteen years of keeping this secret had taught Marcus to calibrate his panic, to channel fear into action rather than noise. "Bianca, come here."
She appeared in the doorway. One look at the empty bed, the open window, the cold breeze carrying the scent of pine and nothing else, and the color draine
