Keith
The crowd spills out of the ballroom like a living tide, everyone laughing, chattering, the night air filled with the scent of sweat, wine, and the electric pulse of the coming run. My eyes don’t leave Hope.
She’s a few paces ahead of me, weaving through the mass of bodies. The soft sway of her onyx hair, the way she tilts her head to glance back—it’s enough to pull me forward without thinking. Every step I take, the beast in me presses harder against the surface, restless from the earlier tension in the ballroom.
Then she vanishes.
One blink. One moment.
Gone.
I shove through the crowd, ignoring the elbows and curses thrown my way. The air tastes wrong—sharp, metallic under the usual warmth of the gathering. My gut twists. She wouldn’t just wander off. Not without telling me.
