Adrian's POV
I stepped out of the med room. She is more stable now. I need to check the perimeter myself to be sure.
The first thing I noticed was the silence; it was too clean, too complete.
In this house, silence usually means control. Now it felt like a warning.
I stood at the window, hands braced on the glass, watching the forest below the estate dissolve into blackness.
The presence that had brushed my mind earlier was still there, faint, rhythmic, like the heartbeat of something waiting.
Thorne stood behind me, his reflection a dark silhouette in the glass.
"All the perimeters are active," he said quietly. "Infrared, psychic dampeners, motion barriers. Nothing human or spectral should get through."
"'Should doesn't reassure me," I muttered.
He didn't rise to it. Thorne never does. That's what makes his words dangerous.
He walked closer, folding his hands behind his back. "Whatever that pulse was, it didn't come from outside the property. It originated here."
