The pull started as a whisper.
Ember noticed it just after sunset, when the pack was settling into its evening rhythm and the forest shifted into that quiet, watchful state it always took on at night. Crickets chirred. Leaves rustled softly. The wards hummed faintly beneath her feet—steady, familiar.
Safe.
Except her chest tightened, slow and aching, as if something just beyond reach had called her name.
She paused at the edge of the packhouse porch, fingers curling around the wooden railing.
Do you feel that? Vespera asked, her voice low and sharp.
Ember nodded faintly. “Yeah.”
It wasn’t pain.
Not exactly.
It was… longing. Urgency. A magnetic tug that pulled not at her body, but at the bond—at that fractured, unstable connection that had been haunting her for days.
Maelis.
The
