Sleep did not come for Kane that night.
She lay in the small healer’s lodge, the fire crackling quietly in the stone hearth, casting warm flickers across the wooden walls. Leon rested in the far corner, already asleep from exhaustion. The healer drifted in and out, checking wounds and murmuring soft protections.
But Kane remained wide awake, curled beneath a thick blanket Adrian had wrapped around her hours ago.
Her thoughts were restless.
Her wolf paced behind her ribs, unsettled.
Her blood hummed with an energy she could not understand.
And outside, she could sense the forest watching her again.
Adrian stayed with her.
He sat beside the cot, broad shoulders tense, attention fixed on the door and windows as if daring anything to enter. His eyes glowed faintly in the firelight.
He
