Rowan's POV
The first pale light of dawn was already turning the edge of the sky gray when I returned to the house. Frozen chunks of mud and snow fell from my fur, my paws ached, but the storm raging inside me had quieted a little, giving way to a heavy, leaden exhaustion.
I shifted back by the back door. My naked body shivered at once in the morning frost, but I barely felt it. I grabbed the pants I had dropped the night before and pulled them on while keeping all my senses focused on the house.
I stepped into the kitchen and stopped immediately. It was quiet. But this silence was no longer as suffocating as it had been hours earlier. I closed my eyes and sent my senses upward, toward the second floor.
She was there.
I heard the slow, steady, still slightly uneven breathing. Carol
