Gunnar
The heavy iron bolt slid into place with a sharp clack, shutting out Arlo's lingering questions and the anxious murmuring of the hallway.
Silence swallowed the room whole.
I leaned my back against the thick oak of the door, letting my head drop against the wood. I closed my eyes, waiting for the familiar, agonizing tear in my chest, the black, thread-like rot that usually clawed at my heart whenever the curse flared.
It didn't come.
Her presence was a medicine my blood craved. Not the idea of her. Her hand reaching for the hem of my coat as the guards pulled her away, fingers closing on nothing.
I wanted to keep her close. Every instinct in my Alpha core roared at me to bring her back, to keep her where the rot couldn't touch me and where I could keep her under my eye.
No.
A
