Cierra:
The morning light felt wrong.
Too bright. Too clean. It was like it didn’t remember the rain or the screaming.
I woke to the sound of breathing that wasn’t mine. Slow, even, steady. Dominic—half slumped in the chair beside my bed, jacket still on, one hand resting close enough that if I moved, I’d brush his fingers.
The room still smelled like smoke and stormwater. Like what the witch left behind.
Like the aftermath of something that shouldn’t have worked but did.
I sat up slowly. My ribs ached, the ache that comes from pulling power through bone and blood. My wolf stirred under my skin—awake, restless, pacing—but she wouldn’t speak. She never did after pain like that.
The silence wasn’t empty this time, though. It thrummed. It waited.
Outside the window, fog pressed agains
