Mason’s scream split the hush like wet wood snapping under too much heat. Roots twisted up his ankles, slick with swamp rot and old salt Rowan’s grandmother buried under the porch beams fifty years before Rowan ever screamed her first word into the night air. The binding flickered in his palm — a dying spark caught in wet mud.
Rowan didn’t watch him break. She turned her face into Lucien’s chest instead, breathing in the cold, the beast, the ancient blood knotting tight under her palm where his ribs strained against his shirt. His claws dug into the porch boards beside her bare feet. She could feel the hush chewing at his spine — the curse itching to split him open like rotten fruit. He was a breath away from tearing the Council apart with teeth and ice — but if he did that, he’d drown in
