I blink open my eyes to the warm sunlight permeating through the curtains, stretching my arms over my head, and turning to the side where Annika’s scent still lingers. But as my hand touches the empty pillow, my eyes widen with realization that strikes me like a blade to my chest.
She’s gone. There isn’t even a dent in the pillow to imply that she was here at all, which only means that she left a long time ago. Probably when I was still asleep.
My heart sinks, and I gulp to hold it together, hold together how torn I feel inside, ripped to shreds as if a part of me left in Annika’s absence this morning, sliced open as if it were the vile claws of the demons doing the damage.
There’s a part of me that wants to throw myself off this bed and go track her down, but there’s also a part less impulsive—perhaps thanks to the remnants of her scent still lingering on my flesh—that stops me. I know it’s space she needs, because I just told her that she’s a witch, and she’s still in denial.
It’s a lot to take in for someone who wasn’t exposed to my world all their life. Twenty-seven years to be exact, and all this information must be too overwhelming to process. Still, her denial and resistance to the truth about who she is and what it means for me—what she means to me—feels like a heavy blow to my heart.
I calm myself down with a few deep breaths, finding the will to get out of bed and risk washing away the traces of her in the shower. We have a lot to do in terms of pack business today—tracking the demons’ portal in the mountains, and trying out the new ritual to bind our borders from the demons. I can’t be wallowing in my sorrows too long and need to get my headback in the game. After all, it is Annika’s safety that is now my main priority, and the display of her powers yesterday when she healed me means that her magic is awakening.
The demons will be on us in no time.
After I’m showered and dressed, I want to skip the part of making breakfast—not out of spite, but because I want to give her the space she needs—but she’s unavoidable when I find her rummaging through the fridge. She doesn’t hear me coming into the kitchen immediately, but when she spots me, she stands ramrod straight and meets my eyes with an even expression.
“Good morning, Annika,” I greet, hesitating at the doorway, glancing over my shoulder because, truthfully, I don’t know where to put my face.
“Good morning,” she returns with a gulp, her fingers visibly tightening around the can of soda, knuckles paling from it.
“I have a few things to take care of today,” I inform her in a rigid tone. “Do you need anything?”
She takes a deep breath before responding, “I’d like to explore the valley.”
My heart does a strange little flip, hope igniting in my chest. Small steps, Heinrich. Small steps.
“That sounds like a good idea. I know you said you don’t need a babysitter, and that’s not what she is. But would you like to have Anastasia show you around the valley? I’d have offered to show you myself, but I have a meeting with the other pack members and some things to take care of.”
Annika blinks at me for a long while as if she’s considering the offer, and then she finally nods slowly. “Okay. She can show me around, sure.”
I nod in return. “I’ll ask her to come by.”
Annika doesn’t say more and swiftly turns toward the table, signaling that there isn’t anything else she wants to say. While my heart breaks at the thought that we’re just leaving what happened last night hanging between us like a dark and dismal cloud, I know this is what she needs.
Space.
And since she wants to explore the valley, it means she’s no longer hell-bent on leaving. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll have a fighting chance with her if I just give her the time and space she needs.
***
The tension on the border is palpable, the weight of a failed hunt hanging heavy on our shoulders even long after we returned from the mountains.
We stand at the eastern ridge now—my ridge—where Silver Stone meets the rest of the valley in a jagged spine of slate and pine. The earth here has always answered to us. It should feel steady beneath my boots. Instead, it feels as though it’s holding its breath.
Amos kneels in the dirt alongside two members of the research team, chalk and ash marking symbols into the soil in deliberate, interlocking spirals. The ritual is new—untested beyond the north and the south—but it’s the best we have for now. Damian stands to my right, silent and watchful, his presence a steady pressure at my shoulder. Conan lingers a few feet away, arms folded, gaze sharp with skepticism he no longer bothers to hide. James and Dedrick fan out with the soldiers,forming a perimeter in case the demons choose this moment to test us again.
“They’re close,” Dedrick murmurs through the pack link.
I feel it, too. Not movement. Not scent. Just the dreadfulness that has become familiar, like rot beneath bark.
Amos rises slowly once the final mark is carved. “Alpha,” he says to me, extending the small ceremonial blade.
The steel glints in the late afternoon light with old law and old magic. Blood binds what fear cannot, and I take the blade without hesitation and draw the edge across my palm. The sting is sharp but grounding. I kneel and press my hand to the center of the sigil, letting my blood seep into the carved earth. For a moment, nothing happens.
Then, the ground hums.
It begins low, almost imperceptible, before rising into something deeper, more resonant. The markings ignite with a dull amber glow that pulses outward in thin veins through the soil, threading between tree roots and rock, weaving themselves into an invisible wall.
The air shifts subtly with a tightening, a sealing that can be felt more than it is seen, as if a door has been closed somewhere far beneath our feet.
