The room was a hollowed echo of something sacred—or something long since desecrated.
Bones lined the walls like ribs of a long-dead beast. Runes pulsed underfoot, hungry with old magic, and in the center of it all… Rowan.
Small. Still. Eyes fluttering.
Caught between two howls.
One was his.
The other, ancient.
Quinn didn’t hesitate. His bare feet burned as they crossed the runes, but he didn’t flinch. The pain was real. Grounding. His blood boiled where the magic bit into his skin, but still—he stepped forward.
Because his son was here.
And nothing was going to keep him away.
“Rowan,” he breathed, falling to his knees beside the boy. His voice shook, cracking under the weight of too many emotions crammed into one breath. “Baby, I’m here. I’m right here.”
Rowan didn’t move. But so
