The compound went quiet the moment Ronan cut the engine.
Not silent — I could hear music somewhere, low conversation, the clink of tools against metal from what looked like an open-air garage twice the size of mine — but quiet in the way a room goes quiet when everyone in it notices the same thing at once. Dozens of eyes turned toward us, and I felt every single one of them land on me with a weight that had nothing to do with ordinary curiosity.
"They can smell you're not one of us," Ronan said quietly, helping me off the bike with a steadying hand I was more grateful for than I wanted to admit, given how badly my legs had decided to stop cooperating. "Human. Unfamiliar. It's going to take some of them a minute to decide whether that's a threat."
"Comforting."
"Stay close to me and it
