ELLIE’S POV
The forest was alive with the quiet hum of shadows, each sound amplified in the silence of night. Every branch groaned with the weight of damp moss, every rustle of leaves whispered a warning too delicate for ordinary ears. The faint snap of twigs underfoot carried through the mist as if the earth itself were breathing, restless and uneasy. The deeper I walked, the more the woods seemed to lean inward, branches arching together overhead like skeletal fingers, closing me in.
Something was wrong.
My instincts screamed in sharp, primal pulses, the kind that went deeper than thought, settling in my bones. My wolf stirred beneath my skin, not with impatience this time but with unease, restless and tense, hackles raised though no clear threat revealed itself. The night wasn’t just
