Aria’s POV
The world around me felt suffocating, a haze of distorted shadows and whispered voices pulling me deeper into the nightmare. I could still see myself as a child, huddled under the crimson-stained branches of a fallen tree, the screams of my pack echoing in the distance. Juda’s presence loomed like an ever-tightening noose, his voice a cold whisper in my ear.
“You can’t run from destiny, Aria,” he taunted, his words curling around me like smoke. “You’ll never escape what you are.”
I wanted to scream back, to tell him he was wrong, but my voice betrayed me. My throat was dry, the air too thick to breathe. He stepped closer, his silhouette a void against the chaos surrounding me, and his laugh—low and eerie—sent a shiver down my spine.
But then, just as suddenly as he’d appeare
