Kieran’s POV

The night is quiet in my territory—too quiet. The kind of stillness that presses against the skin, that makes the shadows stretch longer than they should. I’m in the lower archive chamber, the one carved directly into the rock beneath the packhouse. Ancient wards line the walls. Old magic hums low, restless, like it remembers a time before packs, before titles, before bloodlines fractured into power and pride.

I don’t come here often.

Tonight, I didn’t choose to.

The ...