The mansion creaked in the night like it remembered its former life. Wind slid through shattered windows, carrying the smell of wet stone and old fire. Wolves filled the hall in restless silence, their bodies crowding the edges of the broken room, eyes gleaming gold in the flickering firelight. The storm had passed, but the air still pressed down heavy, charged, as if the sky itself waited for someone to strike a spark.
Aria stood at the cracked table in the center, her blade lying flat across it. The silver edge glimmered with each firelight shift. Her hands braced against the wood, her shoulders square, though pain throbbed with every heartbeat from the fresh bandages that wrapped her ribs. Blood still seeped faintly, but she refused to sit. She refused to look weak.
Dominic was at her
