The earth trembled underfoot, a low, steady rumble that set every instinct in Aria’s body on edge. Her wolf pressed against her chest, pacing, restless, but there was something else too—a darker thrum, a foreign hum that resonated through her veins like a second heartbeat.
The traitor’s smirk glinted in the flickering firelight, smug, cruel. “Do you feel it now, Aria? That pulse in your blood? It’s not wolf. It never was.”
Aria’s breath came shallow, ragged. Her eyes darted to Killian, whose storm-gray gaze locked onto hers with a ferocity that both steadied and broke her. He looked like a man on the edge of ruin, torn between protecting her and confessing truths he’d sworn to bury.
“Don’t listen to him,” Killian growled, his Alpha command lacing every syllable. “He’s twisting the truth
