(Catherine POV)
The injured pup had vanished by the time I returned to the garden shed with clean water and proper bandages. Only a few drops of blood on the straw marked where it had rested, and even those were already drying to dark stains that would soon be indistinguishable from the earth.
I stood in the empty shed, supplies in hand, feeling foolish and strangely bereft. Had I imagined those golden eyes, that impossible intelligence? Had desperation for connection with something real finally driven me to fantasy?
But the blood under my fingernails was real enough, and the memory of warm tongue against my palm lingered like a brand. Whatever I'd helped, it had been flesh and blood and gratitude, not fevered imagination.
The storm building on the horizon matched my restless mood perf
