A whisper. A living, breathing thing shifting its focus.
“Diesel?” I asked as I turned in a half circle. “What does this mean?”
He didn’t hesitate. “It means Wolfe was right to go to Stonefang.”
I frowned. “How does that connect?”
“Because if something old is watching you in the Hollow,” he said quietly, “then something old is watching him there.”
The air stilled. The Hollow hummed. My wolf growled.
And Diesel murmured the last thing I wanted to hear, “Rowen…someone’s waiting for you.”
My breath caught. Waiting for me. Not hunting. Not approaching. Not testing the borders.
Waiting.
My wolf pressed so hard against my skin that I fought to remain in control. Diesel grabbed my elbow, startling me.
“Easy,” he muttered. “You’re not fainting.”
“I wasn’t going to faint,” I snapped. I knew I had been one second away from fainting. “Youfeltthat,” I whispered.
Diesel’s eyes scanned around us constantly. “Everyone within an ounce of power within a mile felt that. The Hollow just shifted its weight.”
“Shifted its weight?” My voice cracked. “What does that even mean?”
“It means the magic of the land moved to face something,” he said. “Like a wolf turning its head to look at a threat.” His jaw clenched. “Or an equal.”
My throat dried. “The Hollow sees whatever’s watching me.”
“Yeah,” Diesel said. “And it didn’t fucking like it.”
It wasn’t the surreal nature of this conversation that threw me. It was the fact that I was able to keep up with it that was picking me up and slamming me through a solid wall.
The Hollow pulsed again under my boots—faint tremor, almost a soft swell beneath my feet, like something beneath me was stretching its spine. The feeling slithered up my legs, wrapped around my ribs, and settled like fingers at the back of my neck.
Not painful. Not hostile. Justaware.And directing my attention in a way that wasn’t entirely mine.
I wrapped my arms around myself. “Diesel…if it moved sideways, does that mean it’s…circling?”
“No,” he said instantly. “If it was circling, I’d smell it. I’d feel it. Whatever this is…it’s not hunting. It’s positioning.”
“For what?”
He finally looked at me. “Contact,” he said. “Or confrontation. Depending on what it wants.”
“That makes me feel worse.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel better,” he said. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”
I closed my eyes for a heartbeat, inhaling deeply, letting the Hollow’s breath synchronize with mine. It steadied me the way it had since I was a girl—rustling leaves, cool earth, the familiar scent of pine sap and moss. But underneath that…was that sense of something new. A pull. Soft. Persistent. Unnerving. But…home.
“Diesel,” I whispered, “it wants me to go somewhere.”
His head snapped toward me so fast I heard vertebrae crack. “No.”
“I didn’t say?—”
