Lira went rigid.

She didn’t argue. She never did when my instincts flared like this, when the bloodline and the life inside me sharpened the world into something only I could feel.

In one seamless motion, she drew both silver daggers, the whisper of steel barely louder than her breath as she sank into a crouch meant for killing.

“Luna,” she murmured, eyes sweeping the treeline, “I hear nothing. The woods are empty.”

“No,” I said quietly.

I narrowed my focus, letting the world thin until scent replaced sound. Sap. Rot. Old rain. And beneath it—

“Sharpen your scent,” I whispered. “They’re inside the radius. Too close.”

My heart tried...