The hum doesn’t subside when she steps away this time. It follows. Persistent.
She glances toward the ridge. “I’m heading back toward town later. More archive notes to cross-reference.”
“Good.” The word comes out too fast.
She arches a brow. “Why does my being out here bother you so much?”
“It doesn’t.”
“It does.” Her voice is curious now. Curiosity is more dangerous than disbelief.
“I don’t like variables I can’t predict,” I say.
“People aren’t variables.”
Out here, they are. Everything is. Even bloodlines.
She moves past me deliberately.
Her arm brushes my leg again. Heat blooms instantly beneath my skin. My breathing evens as if someone adjusted a dial I didn’t know existed.
The headache behind my eyes disappears. The hum doesn’t spike. It settles. Balanced.
That terrifies me more than any surge ever has. Because balance suggests compatibility. Compatibility suggests inevitability.
And with Martin’s granddaughter—an outsider to this community and its history—nothing can be inevitable.
Still, I watch her walk downhill toward the road. Throat tightening at the sway of hips, the ample curves. Shouldn’t look at her this way. But can’t help it.
The moment distance widens, the pressure returns. Even stronger than before. That makes me drop my gaze, grimacing.
Winnie tosses her head.
“Don’t,” I say again. But this time I know I’m not talking to my mount.
The sky remains clear.
No thunder. No storm. Just something building.
Watching.
Waiting.
That nightI lie awake long after the house has gone quiet.
The hum doesn’t fade. It pulses steady and deliberate. It isn’t environmental, and it isn’t random. It can only be described as proximity-based.
I press my palm flat against my chest. The symbol beneath my skin feels warmer than the rest of me, as if it’s active.
When I was fourteen, I asked my father if it ever stopped.
He’d looked at me a long time before answering.
It stops when you stop listening.But then you lose more than you gain.
Discipline, I remind myself.
I’ve been disciplined since before I understood why.
