I do not respond immediately.
The voice hangs in the air between the trees, calm and unhurried, like it expects me to take my time. Like it knows I will. I let the silence stretch. I let it pull thin and uncomfortable instead of rushing to fill it with sound or movement. Fear would want me to speak fast, to claim ground with noise. Instinct would want me to move, to reposition, to do something that feels like action.
I do neither.
My wolf stays lifted inside me, steady and alert, her attention fixed forward. She does not snarl. She does not retreat. She listens the way I do now, not measuring distance or threat, but cadence and breath. Tone. Intention. She has learned, as I have, that danger does not always announce itself with teeth.
The watcher does not press.
That tells me more tha
