Crystal woke with her hand pressed to her chest.
Her heart wasn’t racing.
Her breathing wasn’t uneven.
But something inside her was… misaligned.
She lay still beneath the furs, eyes open, staring at the ceiling beams of the packhouse as dawn’s first pale light crept through the windows. Outside, the pack was beginning to stir—footsteps, distant voices, the low hum of early movement.
None of it eased the tightness coiled beneath her ribs.
Do you feel it? Bree asked.
Crystal swallowed.
“Yes.”
Bree did not push. She never did. Their bond was not one of intrusion but resonance—two consciousnesses sharing a single body, a single soul, listening to the same rhythms of the world.
This rhythm was off-beat.
Crystal rose quietly, careful not to wake Dustin, and crossed to the window. She
