As we began to believe the nightmare was over, it struck again.
The first sound was almost nothing—just a faint scrape, claws dragging slow across glass. My breath hitched. The hairs on my arms rose.
“Did you hear that?” I whispered, though the question was pointless.
All three Alphas snapped to attention at once, their gazes slicing through the dim light. Asher’s eyes shimmered with a molten glow, his wolf clawing to the surface, restless and eager for blood.
The scrape gave way to something worse. Footsteps. Heavy, deliberate. They circled the house with unhurried confidence, as though the thing outside knew exactly how to draw the tension tighter, how to make prey panic. The porch boards groaned under its weight. Then—
A brutal bang shook the back door.
I flinched, pulse hammering
