SERAPHINA’S POV
The next morning, I woke with a heaviness I couldn’t explain.
The light filtering through my curtains felt duller somehow, the colors washed out, as though someone had drawn a gray veil over the world.
At first, I thought it was exhaustion from the day before, or maybe I’d slept wrong.
But when I reached inward—the way I had done the night before, the way that had sparked everything into brilliance—I found nothing.
No heightened clarity.
No hum of connection.
No whisper of her.
My wolf was…gone.
A sick panic shot through me, cold and metallic. I sat up too quickly, breath shuddering in my throat.
“No, no, no,” I muttered, pressing my palms to my temples.
‘This can’t be real,’ I thought frantically. ‘Maybe I’m not awake yet. Maybe this is the dream.’
But the silence inside me was too absolute.
Yesterday the world had sharpened into crystalline detail, sounds layering like a hidden symphony.
