DYER

Restraint is not silence.

It is noise held behind the teeth.

Every second that follows the morning stretches too long, each breath measured, controlled, disciplined, while something feral and insistent claws at the inside of my ribs, demanding movement. My beast doesn’t howl. It doesn’t rage. That would be easier. Instead, it waits, coiled tight, muscles bunched, eyes fixed southward like a compass needle refusing to be ignored.

Aislyn.

Her name settles into me without sound, without ...