Noah
The moment I saw her standing there, everything inside me tightened.
Maria.
Her name echoed through my mind like a quiet thunderclap, soft but powerful enough to shake something deep inside my chest.
For a split second, just one fragile, suspended moment, the world seemed to narrow until nothing else existed but the two of us standing in that doorway.
The hallway behind her faded into a blur of muted colors and dim light. The quiet murmurs of the pack house, the distant footsteps somewhere beyond the corridor, the usual life that filled these walls, all of it dissolved beneath the sudden, overwhelming roar of my own heartbeat.
It was loud.
Too loud.
Each pulse thudded heavily against my ribs, like my body had suddenly forgotten how to exist calmly in her presence.
Maria stood there, unmoving.
And somehow… she looked smaller.
