(Catherine POV)
The morning air carried the scent of rain and dying leaves as I walked the border between cultivated gardens and wild forest. I'd been restless since last night's encounter in the library—Kieran's almost-confession hanging between us like a promise half-spoken, the urgency in that howl that had cut our conversation short.
I needed space to think, to process the growing certainty that everything I'd believed about my situation was wrong. The journal's revelations, the evidence mounting like stones in my chest, the way Kieran had looked at me before that sound had pulled him away with predatory haste.
The whimper stopped me cold.
It was soft, barely audible above the whisper of wind through branches, but it carried a note of distress that bypassed rational thought and wen
