The world telescoped.
The incense smoke. The terrified faces. The snarling rogues. The elder’s whispered prayers.
All of it blurred around the edges.
The only thing in sharp focus was Lucian.
His chest heaved, and every muscle in his body drew taut as a bowstring. The light caught on the faint sheen of sweat on his throat; his shirt was torn at one shoulder where claws—rogue or his own, I couldn’t tell—had raked through fabric and skin.
His eyes were wrong.
The gold I’d come to recognize as his had been devoured by something darker—black flooding in from the edges, leaving a too‑bright ring in the center like a dying sun.
Shadows crawled under his skin, tracing the thick line of the curse mark beneath his shirt. His lip curled, teeth lengthening, the edges of his canines glinting to
