Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tristan’s POV
The moment the war room’s oak door slammed shut behind me, the air in the corridor felt like it could shatter. It was a physical relief to be out of that suffocating room, but the tension clung to me like a shroud. The phantom echoes of the argument buzzed in my skull—Mark’s cold, contained fury, a glacier waiting to calve; Rhael’s blunt challenge, a hammer against an anvil; and Leo’s quiet, dire warning, the whisper of a falling blade. It all coiled tight under my skin, a nest of vipers my wolf was desperate to tear apart. My canines ached, and I could still taste it, the ghost of her energy—Ava’s—a lingering spice of ozone and wild power from that night, a scent that was now permanently seared into my soul.
I barely made it three steps down the torc
