I could feel twenty pairs of eyes boring into my back. Ironclaw wolves, all of them radiating barely controlled violence. They wanted someone to blame, someone to hurt, and I was convenient. "Any day now," Juniper said from somewhere behind me. Her voice dripped with contempt. I swallowed hard and reached out, my hands hovering over Marcus's chest. He'd been nineteen, according to what Dante had told me in the car. A fighter, ambitious, desperate to prove himself worthy of the Kastor name. Now he was just cold meat on a loading dock, another body in a conspiracy I didn't understand. My fingers made contact with his skin. Ice cold. Dead for hours now, rigor mortis already setting in. I closed my eyes and reached inward, searching for that foreign fragment the way I had with Adrian. The sensation should be immediate, a cold spot, something that didn't belong pressed against my consciousness. A piece of someone else's final moments, ready to unfold.
Last Updated : 2026-02-02 Read more