Morning smells wrong.
Too alive.
You open the balcony doors and freeze. The metal rail is scored — four clean gouges curved like punctuation. The marks are too deep for any human hand. Rain fills them now, trembling in the grooves like silver veins. Your pulse answers with a tremor of recognition. A gust of air moves past you, carrying pine and smoke. Not exhaust, not rain — something wilder. You grip the doorframe until your knuckles pale, your pulse answering with a tremor of recognition that isn't yours.
Somewhere across the city, a boardroom hums with tension.
Atlas stands at the window of the Syndicate's upper chamber, jaw locked, eyes far too bright for daylight. The storm light paints faint lines across his face, catching on the scars that mark his shoulders beneath his shirt.
Elara leans against the table, silen but watching. Thorne's report lies open in front of him: unauthorized presence, eastern district, claw traces consistent with Wolfborn signature.
"Who went out last night?" Atlas asks.
No one answers. The room holds its breath. Thorne finally shakes his head once. "All accounted for."
Elara finally speaks, soft and unflinching. "Then maybe she came to you."
The glass in the room vibrates. A low sound rolls from Atlas's chest —too deep to belong to a man, too controlled to belong to a beast. He turns sharply, palms braced against the edge of the table, shoulders tight as wire drawn too far..
"Enough."
But control is already slipping. The tether hums under his skin like a current. He feels her heartbeat again — faster, panicked, alive.
Thorne steps forward. "Alpha, if she's drawing you—"
"She's not drawing me," Atlas snaps. "It's reflex. An echo."
Elara doesn't move. "Echoes don't leave marks."
The words hang in the air like smoke that refuses to disperse.
Cassian, silent until now, folds his hands. "Perhaps restraint has finally found its limit," he says, mild as poison, smiling the way a man does when he's testing the floor for cracks..
Atlas looks up —glacial blue and sharp enough to carve silence.
"Careful, Dray. The limit cuts both ways."
He leaves before anyone can answer, the scent of storm following him out.
Night returns faster than it should.
You stand on your balcony, fingers brushing the cold railing, gaze drawn to the skyline. The moon is rising — swollen, luminous, pulling light from everything corner of the city.
And then, you see it.
A thin silver thread, glowing faintly, stretching from your chest upward into the distance. It's almost invisible — a trick of the eye — but when you reach out, it shivers in response. You follow its line to a tower of glass and steel far across the city.
At its peak, a figure stands in silhouette — still as carved stone. Watching.
The tether hums, soft and steady, like the promise of thunder.
Atlas stands in the rain atop the Syndicate's tower. His shirt is open at the throat, wind pulling at the collar. The air tastes of electricity and something sharper — her fear.
He closes his eyes, and the world contracts. For a moment, he sees through her vision: "She's feeling it," he murmurs.
Elara's voice behind him, quiet but not gentle: "Then stop pretending you don't."
He doesn't turn. "I told you before, this isn't choice. It's consequence."
She steps closer. "It's both. Always both."
The rain thickens. Somewhere below, thunder breaks over the skyline like applause.
Atlas finally opens his eyes — blue, bright, and burning.
"The solstice isn't coming, Elara''
"Then what?"
''It's already here."
Back in your apartment, the lights flicker once, then twice. The hum grows louder, weaving through the walls like breath behind you.
When you look toward the mirror again, the crack you saw this morning is gone.In its place, faint but deliberate, a new mark traces down the center — the same four curved lines as the railing outside.
Your reflection doesn't move when you do.
Then it smiles.