[Ava's POV]
The profound, chilling calm that had settled over Ava after the assassin’s erasure did not dissipate; it deepened, becoming the new atmosphere of the Vault.
It was a quiet more unnerving than any tension, a stillness that felt less like peace and more like the eye of a hurricane—a temporary, deceptive lull in which the very laws of reality seemed to hold their breath.
The pack moved around her with a new, wary deference, their earlier protectiveness now tinged with the primal awe reserved for a natural phenomenon that had just demonstrated it could distinguish between a storm worthy of respect and a nuisance to be tidied away.
Driven by a desperate need to map the contours of this terrifying new landscape, Jaxon retreated into the deepest, most neglected catacombs of the
