Dustin felt it before the alarms.
It wasn’t a sound or a scent—it was a shift, subtle and wrong, like the land itself flinching beneath his feet. The wards along the southern boundary didn’t scream this time. They whispered.
Pressure without impact. Intent without force.
Bree surged inside Crystal the same moment Maverick stirred within him, both wolves bristling in sharp, simultaneous warning.
Something is pulling, Maverick growled.
Dustin turned sharply toward the forest edge.
“Ember,” Crystal said at the same time.
They were already moving.
Ember didn’t realize she was walking until she was halfway to the river trail.
The pull wasn’t pain this time. That was what frightened her.
It was quiet.
Persistent.
Like gravity.
Her boots crunched softly over pine needles as dawn-ligh
