I woke up with a jolt.

The bed beneath me was empty. Cold.

Xavier was gone.

My heart sank, but not from his absence alone. From the cold that crept in around me—an omen I couldn’t shake.

The events of the previous night spun like a wheel behind my eyes. Xavier’s anger. His promise. The heat between us. His lips, his touch. The strange gentleness that bled through that violent storm inside him.

And then the howl.

Not just any howl.

A call of blood.

I threw off the sheets, my nightgown clinging to damp skin, and padded barefoot across the marble floor to the window. The courtyard below was...