The attack came at dusk. Not loud. Not chaotic but precise. Calla felt it before the alarms sounded—a sudden tightening in her chest, the silver within her pulling taut like a wire drawn too fast. Company. She was halfway down the corridor when the first blast rocked the east wing. Stone shuddered. Glass shattered. Guards shouted orders that turned into screams.
Adrian was there in an instant, moving like a force of nature unleashed. He caught her around the waist and spun them behind a pillar as bullets tore through marble. “Stay with me,” he growled into her ear. “I am,” she shot back, already lifting her hand.
Moonlight snapped to life along her skin—controlled, careful, a measured burn instead of a flare. She shaped it the way she’d learned in the last twenty-four hours: narrow, prec
