The pack breathed with a hollow silence, cold and unyielding, as Liora moved through its shadowed corridors like a stormcloud on the verge of breaking. The weight of the secret she carried, a truth she had finally spoken aloud pressed on her chest heavier than any physical burden. Gonzalo made her weak. Not a sickness or curse, but the undeniable, consuming truth that haunted her every breath.
She avoided him all day. Not out of cruelty, but out of necessity.
Each time she heard footsteps near, her heart clenched in a painful rhythm, and she slipped into the darkness before Gonzalo could find her. She had spent so long denying the power love held over her, telling herself that emotions were chains she could shatter, but the cracks had grown too wide to ignore. She had admitted it to herself and now to him, that his presence drained her strength, unraveling the fierce warrior she fought to be.
And so she ran.
