“Stay close,” I say, low and firm.
That gets his attention. He moves closer to my side, his hand brushing mine, ready to lace our fingers together. I don’t take it this time. Not because I don’t want to, but because my focus has narrowed to the threat ahead.
This territory is… contested.
I can’t tell yet by whom, only that the land feels tense, stretched thin like a wire pulled too tight. My instincts prickle, every sense sharpening as I scan our surroundings. There’s movement at the edge of my awareness—too quiet, too deliberate.
Elias follows my gaze, confusion flickering across his face, then unease.
“Boone,” he says again, softer now. “What is it?”
“We may need to move quickly,” I reply. “If I tell you to run, you run. Do not argue.”
His eyes widen. “Okay….”
I place a hand on his shoulder, grounding him, and lean in just enough that my voice is for him alone. “Listen to me,” I say. “No matter what you see, no matter what you hear, you stay behind me.”
He nods, jaw tight, fear beginning to bleed through his calm.
There’s movement in the brush ahead of us.
My muscles coil.
Whatever happiness we’ve been living in these last few days—whatever softness I have allowed myself—it doesn’t vanish. It sharpens. And whatever is out there is about to learn exactly how much I have to lose.
The land exhales wrong.
Not the steady breath of forest and stone, not the layered life of insects and roots and moving water. It’s sharper than that—a pressure that rolls outward, deliberate and testing, like a predator stepping just close enough to see if it’s been noticed.
Inotice.
I stop fully now, one arm coming out instinctively to bar Elias from moving past my shoulder. He freezes, breath hitching, every nerve in his body suddenly aware that this is not a drill.
“Behind me,” I say again, quieter but harder.
He obeys without question. I feel him at my back, close enough that his warmth presses into me, that I can smell the spike of fear beneath his familiar scent. Fury curls in my gut.
The brush ahead parts.
Whatever steps into the clearing doesn’t belong here.
It moves wrong—too upright, too fluid in a way that makes my skin crawl. Its shape is humanoid but stretched, warped, like someone took the idea of a body and pulled it too far. Its eyes catch the light in a way that is not reflective, buthungry.
It’s sensed Elias.
The thing’s head tilts, attention snapping to the human shape behind me, and its focus sharpens. A sound escapes its throat—low, scraping, evaluative.
I bare my teeth. “Leave,” I growl.
My voice rolls across the clearing like thunder, layered with command, with ownership, withno. I step forward deliberately, widening my stance, making my size and mass impossible to ignore.
The creature hesitates.
Good.
I feel Elias’s hand clutch at me, his fingers curling tight, and the fear spikes again—hot, electric. My instincts surge in response, every protective reflex screaming.
The thing takes one more step.
