(Catherine POV)
Sleep had become a stranger to me. I stood at my bedroom window in the pre-dawn darkness, my forehead pressed against glass cold enough to sting, watching shadows that might have been nothing more than wind-blown branches or overactive imagination.
But I knew better now. The howls that had echoed through the forest for three nights running weren't just wolves marking territory or calling to mates. There was intelligence in those voices, purpose that spoke of minds capable of more than animal instinct.
The gardens below lay bathed in moonlight that turned familiar paths into rivers of silver, transformed everyday beauty into something that belonged in fairy tales. Everything looked different in this light—more real somehow, as if daylight was the illusion and this etherea
