Third Person P.O.V.
The room was warm with firelight, but the atmosphere could have frozen blood.
The bond between Mason and Bella pulsed faintly, an invisible tether vibrating in the air, pulling them together and yet tearing them apart all at once. Bella sat rigidly on the loveseat, her white dress glowing faintly in the hearth’s dim light, her hair spilling like a river of moonlight around her face. Mason sat across from her in the armchair, his large frame hunched forward, hands gripping his knees so tightly his knuckles whitened.
Everyone else had gone still, as though they too felt the earth tremble beneath the weight of what was about to unravel.
Mason’s chest rose and fell like a man fighting for air, his wolf snarling inside him, clawing to take control. But his mind—his human
