With a sharp gasp, she tumbled backwards, nearly tripping over her feet. Dominic didn’t stop her, his eyes following her every movement.
Layla didn’t remember leaving the room.
It was too much. The air was too close, the scent of him everywhere, iron and smoke and power. She couldn’t breathe it any longer.
Barefoot, still in the white of the ceremony, she fled.
The stone of The Sawmill was cold underfoot, the corridor echoing with every footstep. The farther she ran, the louder her heart became, until it drowned out everything else, the bond, the fear, even the storm outside.
She passed no one. The guards had withdrawn to the outer halls, the pack dispersed to their homes. When she pushed open the great doors, the sea wind struck her like a slap.
The trees stooped towards her, vast and dark and merciless. Beyond, she could hear the roar of the waves. Skymist glittered in the half-light, the town’s lanterns blurred by fog. Rain thundered down, and her feet sank into the soft mud.
She didn’t stop.
The path wound down through the pines, roots clawing up through the wet earth. Her gown caught on branches, her bare feet scraping on rock. The mark on her palm pulsed, a faint silver burn, as though the bond itself disapproved of her leaving. Every few steps, she felt Dominic at the edge of her mind, steady, watchful, infuriatingly calm.
“Stay out of my head,” she half-yelled to the wind.
No answer came.
When the trees broke open onto the road that led toward town, she ran faster. The storm had thinned to steady rain now, the slick streets reflecting the cool halo of streetlamps. Her lungs burned, her feet were bleeding, and her dress clung to her like a second skin. But still she ran. Past the bakery, the empty square, the shuttered houses, until her little shop appeared through the drizzle, dark and waiting.
She reached it shaking. Her fingers fumbled with the latch before the door gave way. The smell of paper and dust and wood enveloped her, familiar and grounding.
She slammed the door shut behind her and pressed her back to it, chest heaving.
Only then did she start to cry.
Not loudly, just quiet, broken sounds that came out of her in shuddering waves. The tears left salt on her lips. When they were gone, she stood for a long moment, staring at the faint outline of her reflection in the shop window. Her hair was tangled, her face pale, her eyes ringed in dark circles. The ritual gown, once white and holy, was torn and muddied.
Without thinking, she lifted the trapdoor and descended into the basement.
The air there was cooler, and she waved her hand. Immediately, the candles jumped to life, the flames flaring up before settling down into a warm embrace. The shelves were still a mess, books and paper scattered across the floor, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care.
Sinking to the floor, she blindly reached out to pull one of her throw blankets around her, her eyes too full of tears to properly see what she was doing.
Sleep came all too heavily.
***
She was standing in the snow.
Endless white spread in every direction, a frozen plain beneath a moon far larger than it should have been. Its light bled across the landscape like liquid silver. She couldn’t feel her feet,but she knew she was moving, drawn forward by something vast and unseen.
The air shimmered.
From the horizon, a shape emerged. Tall, slender, cloaked in a pale light that wasn’t human. It had no face, only eyes like shards of the moon itself.
“Layla Hawthorne,” said a voice that wasn’t a voice at all, but a vibration through her very being, “daughter of wolves.”
She couldn’t speak. Her mouth formed words, but the sound died before it reached the air.
“You have been chosen,” the figure continued, stepping closer. “The God watches. And you are part of the things to come.”
She took a step back. “I don’t—I’m no one.”
The figure tilted its head, “Then why do you see?”
