Complete and utter silence.
No wind rattling the windows.No distant howl of wolves.No creak of trees bending under snow.
Nothing.
Just...nothing.
My eyes snap open, every instinct screaming danger, but before I can move, before I can wake Tessa, the temperature in the cabin plummets.
And I know.
The lull is over.
The storm is coming.
Chapter Fifteen
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Tessa
Silence drags me outof sleep.
Not the peaceful kind that settles over the wilderness at dawn, but a heavy, unnatural stillness that prickles along my skin and sends my heart slamming against my ribs before I’m even fully awake.
Vex is already awake beside me, his body rigid with tension.I can feel it through the bond, a coiled spring of predatory awareness mixed with something I’ve never felt from him before.
Fear.
“Vex?”My voice comes out as barely a whisper.
“Don’t move.”His hand finds mine under the covers, squeezing once.“Something’s coming.”
I want to ask what, but the words die in my throat as the temperature plummets.One second the cabin is warm from the residual heat of our bodies and last night’s fire, the next my breath is fogging in front of my face.Frost creeps across the window in fractals too perfect, too deliberate to be natural.
The mark on my shoulder ignites.