AIDEN
Claire arrived just after sunset.
I'd been pacing the length of my apartment with no real destination, moving from the kitchen to the window and back again as if the act of motion alone might burn off the tension in my body. My wolf tracked the space with me, attention fixed outward, tuned to the familiar pattern of her presence long before she reached the door. The bond responded first, a quiet awareness that sharpened as she drew closer, and by the time the knock sounded, my body was already keyed to her.
I opened the door before she had a chance to knock again.
She stood there with her bag slung over one shoulder, hair pulled back, expression composed in the way she used after long days. Work still clung to her, not as a scent I could name cleanly, but as a layer of
