Elle POV
Something was wrong.
More wrong than the fortress.
More wrong than Blake’s curse.
More wrong than being bound and blind.
It wasn’t a sound.
Or a smell.
Or a presence.
It was something deeper—
a pressure in my chest,
a tightening behind my ribs,
as if danger itself had begun breathing somewhere very close.
I didn’t know where Blake was.
He had left hours ago, his aura fading down the corridor like receding thunder. Jason had stood outside the door for a while… then even he drifted away.
Leaving silence.
And the silence changed.
The fortress was never loud, but now…
the air felt tight.
Stretched.
Pulled.
Like a storm waiting beyond the stone walls.
Something in me—some instinct older than memory—whispered:
You are being hunted.
I sat still, listening.
The res
