Lily sat frozen through the rest of class, the photo of Dana burning itself into her mind long after she'd forced her phone screen dark. Every instinct told her to show Ethan immediately, to let him handle this the way he'd handled everything else since the mate bond had upended her life. But the message had been explicit. Meet me alone. And after everything she'd learned about how quickly danger could spread to the people around her, she wasn't willing to risk involving anyone else, not even Ethan, until she understood exactly what she was dealing with.
The bell rang, and she moved through the hallway on autopilot, barely registering Dana's cheerful goodbye as they parted ways at the main entrance. She caught sight of Ethan near the parking lot, waiting for her the way he had every day s
