Shirley
Night has a way of peeling back every mask.
When the bar’s clamor faded, when Zara’s laughter was just a memory, when Dante’s steady presence became the silence outside my door, I was left alone with the shadows. That was when it started.
A faint burn, like fire stitched beneath my skin, tugged at the base of my neck where the mark lived. It wasn’t pain—not exactly. It was more insidious. Like a whisper brushing over my nerves, stirring restless thoughts I wanted buried.
My fingers went there automatically, tracing the faint ridges of the mark, and the echo of Elias’s voice filled my head.
The hunter’s mark awakens with your first kill. Only then will you wield what you were meant to.
I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head. No. I wasn’t doing this. I wasn’t going to let so
