Recovery moved slowly. Even though the doctors allowed her to return home, her body still ached. Some nights the wound throbbed, refusing to let her sleep. Other nights it wasn’t the pain in her body, but the pain in her soul that kept her awake. She would jolt up in bed from the memory of the shot… and the look in his eyes.
Marcus.
He was always there. Sometimes silent. Sometimes too attentive. As if trying to make it clear: she was his now. And he wasn’t letting anyone take her away.
Days drifted in quiet, but outside her windows a whole spectacle was unfolding. One article after another burst into the news, targeting Remus’s clan. Headlines like “Remus’s Bloody Footprints,” “Love with Fangs,” and even “The Monster Beside Her” spread like wildfire. It was a calculated attack—designed
