3rd Person POV
The roof creaked softly beneath Ryder’s boots as he moved closer to the edge, his eyes locked on the tree line stretching beyond Allison’s house.
Daybreak had started bleeding slowly across the horizon, washing the woods in cold gray light that made everything look quieter than it really was. The neighborhood around them still slept, houses dark and still beneath the early morning sky, but the woods behind Allison’s house felt wide awake.
Watching.
Waiting.
The air smelled like rain, damp earth, and something sharper lingering beneath it all.
The rogue.
Even now, Ryder could still smell him faintly drifting through the trees. His jaw tightened hard enough to ache.
“He came back for her,” he muttered quietly.
Beside him, Rowan remained perfectly still, his gaze fixed
