CALLAN’S POV
I stumbled through the front door, the weight of Tenebrous still clinging to me like damp root. My boots thudded against the hardwood, echoing in the too-quiet house. The journey back had been long—me and my men, grim-faced and weary, riding through the morning with the stench of betrayal thick in our lungs. Lukas had sent me to sniff out Ryker’s schemes, and I’d done it. I’d seen too much. Now, I needed to find him, to spill every twisted detail I’d uncovered before it festered inside me any longer.
“Lukas?” My voice bounced off the walls, unanswered. The air felt wrong—stale, heavy with something I couldn’t place. I dropped my pack by the door, the clatter loud in the stillness. Selenea wasn’t around either. No clinking of her knives in the kitchen, no sharp quips cutting
