My stomach drops. “How long?”
“If we’re lucky? Sunrise.” Auren’s expression darkens. “If we’re not? They could be here in hours.”
Thane’s silver eyes flash. “Then we need to move. Now.”
“No.” Auren’s voice is firm. “You need rest. All of you. Bree especially.” He looks at me, and there’s genuine concern in his expression. “You just escaped the Void. You’re running on fumes and adrenaline. If you leave now, exhausted and unprepared, Phil will run you down before you make it a mile.”
“So what do you suggest?” Stellan asks, his tone sharp.
“Get some rest while you can,” Auren says. “Recover what strength you have. I’ll keep watch, and I have wards that will alert us if anyone approaches.” He pauses. “Tomorrow, at first light, we run. I know places they haven’t found yet. People who can help.”
The room falls into tense silence, everyone weighing the risk.
“He’s right,” Theo says quietly, his voice rumbling through his chest where I’m still pressed against him. “We’re no good to anyone if we collapse from exhaustion.”
Rhett looks like he wants to argue, but Gray’s wolf moves and presses against his leg, and something in the gesture seems to settle him.
“Fine,” Thane says finally. “But we leave at first light. No delays.”
Auren nods. “Agreed.” He glances at me one more time, then follows Claire’s path down the hallway.
The silence he leaves behind feels heavier than his presence.
I sit there in Theo’s lap, staring at the empty doorway, and think about birds that see the future and mothers who abandon their children to save them and the impossible weight of choices made with love and fear.
Theo’s arms are still around me, solid and warm. After a moment, he shifts slightly, adjusting his hold.
“You okay?” he murmurs against my hair.
I don’t answer right away. Don’t know how to put into words the tangle of emotions in my chest.
Maybe that’s why it found me first.
The raven, I mean.
Because unlike the fox and snake that guided her, the raven knows how stories end.
And mine isn’t over yet.
Chapter 21
Gray
The others filter out slowly—Rhett’s hand lingering on Bree’s shoulder, Jace’s backward glance as he closes the door behind him. Wes hesitates in the hallway. Even Stellan pauses, like he’s considering saying something.
But they all leave.
All except her.
I feel Bree’s eyes on me before I even move toward the door. That pull—the one that’s been constant since I first shifted—tightens somewhere deep in my chest.
I don’t look at her.
Can’t.
If I do, I’ll stay. And I can’t stay.
Can’t be there for her like this.
