Esther’s POV
The first sign that the night was different came as a low, rolling tremor under my bare feet. The Blood Moon Pack compound sat silent, but the walls themselves seemed to vibrate like the inside of a drum. Outside my barred window, the moon was swollen and white-blue, leaking silver down the corridor walls like spilled mercury. Full moon nights had always made Nicholas strange—quicker to rage, slower to remember—but tonight his power felt like a living, breathing thing clawing at its cage.
I’d been in the east cell three days. I’d kept track by scratching lines into the mortar with a shard of tile. Three days of no word from Carl. Three days of pacing the same five steps, three days of trying to pray Sharon awake inside me and hearing only silence.
Until now.
Norman’s grow
