The heavy wood of the front door rattled again under Aunt Mira’s persistent knocking. Outside, the rain continued to fall, but inside the cabin, the silence between Ace and Rose was suffocating.
"Rose!" Mira’s voice cut through the air, tinged with a sharp edge of panic. "Ace, if you've locked her away and she's hurting, I swear to the ancestors I will tear down this door myself."
Rose panicked. She looked down at her hands, her dark, obsidian claws , her breath coming in short, ragged gasps that scraped against her elongated fangs. She could taste the faint, metallic tang of her own blood where her teeth had pierced her lip. She tried to force them babut the wild, untamed heat in her chest refused to subside.
"I can't," Rose whispered, her glowing silver eyes wide with terror as
