EMBER’S POV

Knox matches their fury like a true beast.

There’s no roar or hesitation to his steps. He just moves with a brutal, blunt-force violence, carried out with the terrifying speed of an apex predator trapped in a bespoke suit.

The first rogue reaches him, and Knox catches the outstretched arm, twists, and snaps the elbow with a wet crack, using the man’s own momentum to hurl him into the second.

They go down in a heap of limbs and splintered wood.

But I can see what the dead-nettle poison is doing to him. Any other night, Knox is a blur, an untouchable force of nature.

Tonight he’s grounded,...