Callie’s POV
The surveillance wasn’t what I imagined.
There were no bars, no locked doors, no guards following me around in any obvious way, and yet I had never felt less free in my entire life, because what was unsettling about that place wasn’t the force with which it imposed its rules—
but the naturalness with which it expected everyone to understand them without needing explanation.
No one told me I couldn’t leave.
No one tried to restrain me after Kael’s order.
But every glance that landed on me, every silence that formed when I passed nearby, every subtle movement from the wolves positioned throughout the territory made one thing clear:
I was no longer moving through the place as an outsider.
I was moving through it as something that needed to be observed, evaluated, and cont
