Silver did not fall, she slipped.
One moment, Arthur’s hands were on her shoulders, grounding. The next, the world tilted inward, folding like wet paper. Sound drained first, then color, and then weight. Her body still stood in the Alpha’s quarters, still breathing, still trembling, but her mind was being pulled somewhere else.
Somewhere deeper, she tried to scream, but nothing came out.
The room blurred, stretching like a reflection on water. Arthur’s voice became distant, distorted, as if it were being shouted through a tunnel.
“Silver!”
She reached for him. Her fingers passed through his form like smoke.
And then she was no longer there.
She stood in a forest she had never seen.
The trees were wrong. Their trunks twisted upward like grasping hands, bark split with glowing veins
