SCARLETT
The light of the frost-portal shimmered like a frozen aurora, each ripple carrying a faint hum that vibrated in my bones. Cold mist rolled outward in slow waves, licking across the glacier floor. My mark pulsed steady now, but insistent, as though the portal itself recognized the bond braided between my heart and the three Alphas beside me.
Kael stood to my left, flames smoldering at his fingertips despite the icy air. “Whatever’s waiting on the other side,” he said, voice low but certain, “we face it together.”
Darius’s storm-gray eyes narrowed. “Stay close. The Rift feeds on separation.”
Lucien didn’t speak. He simply watched the spiraling light, his shadows curling and uncurling like restless smoke. When his gaze flicked to me, something unreadable flashed there anticipatio
