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The scent hit me like a punch to the gut.
Sharp. Smoky. Him.
I froze mid-step in the middle of the market, my basket of dried lavender and feverfew nearly slipping from my fingers. Around me, the village buzzed with vendors hawking honeyed figs, children darting between carts, the rhythmic clatter of hooves on cobblestone, but it all blurred into white noise. My ears roared. My wolf snarled, hackles rising beneath my skin, torn between flight and something darker, the instinct to hunt the threat.
Damian.
I spun, scanning the crowd. Every tall figure in a dark coat sent my pulse skittering. Every shadow between the stalls felt like a trap waiting to snap shut. And then there. At the edge of the square, near the old oak archway that led into the Blackthorn Woods a flash of silver-white hair, the sweep of a long coat vanishing into the trees like smoke.
My feet moved before my brain could catch up.
Stupid. So stupid.
But I followed anyway.
