Aria didn’t need a calendar to know when the day came.
She woke before dawn with the certainty sitting heavy in her chest, the way you knew a storm was on the horizon even with your eyes closed. The bond wasn’t screaming, not like the first days, but it pulsed with a slow, relentless ache that felt like someone pressing a thumb right into a bruise.
South, it insisted. Pay attention.
“No,” she whispered into the dark. “Not today.”
Her wolf whined once, then tucked herself tighter, offended and hurting, but not fighting her.
The house was still when Aria slipped downstairs. No clatter of dishes yet, no raised voices. Just the low glow of banked coals in the hearth and the faint hiss of the kettle over them.
Mara materialized out of the dimness like she’d been born from smoke. “You’re u
