The next day tried to pretend it was ordinary.
Pups argued over whose turn it was to pick a story. Someone burned a batch of bread, filling the hall with smoke and curses. A patrol returned wet and swearing about a stream that “definitely wasn’t that deep yesterday.”
On the surface, Aria moved through it all: reading, carrying, eating, answering when spoken to. Her body was learning Nightfall’s rhythms faster than her mind.
But underneath, the bond had started to throb again.
Not as savage as the day after the rejection, but worse than the night by the fence. The more she let herself settle here, the angrier some part of her seemed to get at the idea of loosening her grip on Silvercrest.
Her wolf paced inside her ribs, ears flattened. Not toward Aiden this time—just restless, irritabl
