The tension wasn't born in that instant, because true tensions don't emerge from nowhere, they accumulate in successive layers of gazes held too long, silences that don't ask permission to exist, and unspoken words that ferment until demanding concrete form, and Selena felt this with uncomfortable clarity as she crossed the pack's secondary courtyard, conscious that space, once familiar, now observed her with different attention, less submissive, more evaluating.

She hadn't come by ...