Nobody spoke.
The elder’s words still hung over the clearing like a storm cloud.
Sometimes the other follows.
Denise couldn’t stop hearing them.
Couldn’t stop imagining them.
One death.
Two graves.
The idea felt impossible.
Wrong.
Yet every elder present looked as though they had witnessed it before.
As though they knew exactly how real the danger was.
The bond pulsed.
Liam.
She felt his focus immediately.
Not on the elders.
Not on the challenge.
On her.
Always her.
The realization was becoming harder to ignore.
And somehow that frightened her more than the prophecy.
More than the bond.
More than the strange presence she had felt stirring deep inside it.
Because Liam cared.
Far more than he should.
Far more than she understood.
And if the elders were right—
that c
