Silence clung to the den like frost.
Jace stood frozen, lips slightly parted, eyes unfocused as if trying to reach into a memory buried so deep it had taken another life to stir it.
Quinn’s hand tightened around his. “Who is Azren?”
Rowan blinked groggily, still weak, still fevered from the raw power he’d channeled, but his voice came with unnatural clarity.
“He’s inside you too.”
Jace flinched.
And Quinn felt it—not fear, but recognition.
Jace swallowed hard, pulling back just slightly, like the room had shrunk around him. “I... I heard that name once. When I was a child. My mother screamed it in her sleep.”
Quinn sat straighter, heart thrumming.
“She told me never to say it. Said it was an old sickness that ran in the Thorn blood, from before the founding of the pack. She said i
