The Hollow Moon trembled above them, its crimson light bleeding through the cracks of night like an open wound. The clearing where Aria stood was no longer the sanctuary of roots and glyphs—it was a fractured stage where fate prepared to spill blood.
Caleb's body convulsed in the center of the broken glyph circle, the runes etched into his skin glowing brighter than they ever had before. They writhed like living veins of silver fire, curling around his arms, his chest, his throat. His eyes—those warm, earth-bound eyes she loved—were gone, replaced by pools of molten silver that burned with a light that didn't belong to this world.
"Caleb!" Aria lunged toward him, but the force that rolled off his body slammed her back like a storm. She hit the ground hard, breath knocked out of her lungs, her wolf snarling inside her as pain tore through her ribs.
