[Emma's POV]
The silence that followed Ryder’s declaration was a living, predatory thing. It wasn’t mere absence of sound; it was the high-pitched whine in the air before a cataclysm, the drawn-in breath before a world-ending scream. It was the vacuum before the detonation, and in that void, every unsaid truth, every buried betrayal, hung suspended like motes of dust in a tomb.
And Maddox was the spark.
He didn’t just move; he unmade the stillness. One moment he was a statue of coiled fury, the next he was a blur of devastating motion, crossing the space between himself and Ryder in a time frame that belonged to predators, not men. His shift wasn’t complete, but it was enough—his hands, already grotesquely enlarged and tipped with brutal, black claws, seized the front of Ryder’s shirt.
