THE FEAR BENEATH
He woke before dawn.
I knew because the bond told me,a shift in his presence, from the deep stillness of sleep to something sharper. Awake. Restless. The quiet edge of thoughts that had outrun the night.
I lay in my room and felt it.
For a moment, I stayed where I was, staring at the ceiling, listening to the silence of the house. The pack lands were still, caught in that fragile space before morning where nothing moved unless it had to.
But the bond didn’t let me ignore it.
It pulled—not urgently, but steadily.
So I got up and went to him.
His door was open.
He sat by the window in the dark, elbows on his knees, hands loose between them. Still—but not at rest. The kind of stillness that held too much inside it.
He looked up when I appeared.
No surprise.
Of co
