I had never known silence could cut so deep.

It wasn’t the ordinary hush of dawn, or the peace that followed a storm. No—this was the kind of silence that spread like poison, crawling under the skin, wrapping around my throat until it became hard to breathe.

Rick was back.

Alive.

And chained in the deepest cell beneath the pack house.

I should have been relieved that Kristen had stopped him, that the assassin’s blade had never reached me—but all I could think of was the way ...