The scent of Celeste’s perfume hung in the still forest air, a toxic flower blooming in a place of moss and stone. It was wrong. Utterly, profoundly wrong.
Selene’s hand was a vise in Caleb’s, their earlier heat flash-frozen into a block of shared dread. Aria recoiled inside her, a silent snarl of territorial violation. Our den. She’s near our den.
Eli was the first to break the stunned silence, his voice a thin whisper. “She’s home? She wasn’t supposed to be back until tomorrow.”
“She isn’t in the home,” Lucian corrected, his nose wrinkling as he analyzed the scent trail on the breeze. “The concentration is wrong. It’s diffused, carried from the perimeter. She’s been… walking the tree line. Circling.”
Jakob straightened, the oversized flannel shirt hanging from his shoulders. The shoc
