(Dominic’s POV)
The air smelled like iron and ash.
Ava’s scent had led me here—to a ravine carved deep through the southern foothills like a wound in the earth. Her trail, sharp and clean, had stretched through forest and rock, but now… nothing. It ended at the edge of the cliff. No blood. No broken branches. Just silence.
I crouched near a pile of disturbed soil, fingers brushing a set of faint impressions in the dirt—boot prints, not hers. Heavier. Broader. There were multiple tracks, close together, angled toward the ravine wall. A rope had been used—then pulled back up.
They had taken her underground.
My jaw clenched, grinding tight enough I tasted metal. I rose slowly, eyes sweeping the darkening horizon, the distant glow of dusk pressing against my shoulders like a weight. She h
