POV: Sable
I found blood on my pillow.
Not a lot. Just a small dark stain, dried and flaking, right where my cheek had been resting. I sat up and touched my face. My fingers came away clean — no cut, no wound, nothing. But when I looked at my hands in the grey morning light, my nails were longer than they had been yesterday. Thicker. Darker at the tips, almost like—
I pulled my hands into fists and shoved them under the blanket.
No. I was not going to think about that.
Two days had passed since the woods. Since Caspian. Since he looked at my chest and his face went white and he disappeared like a ghost. I had not seen him once since then — not at breakfast, not in the hallways, not anywhere. It was like he had vanished into the mansion and left no trace behind.
And I hated how much I noticed his absence.
Every time footsteps echoed down the hall outside my room, my head snapped up. Every time a door opened somewhere in the house, my heart jumped. Each time, I told myself it was just because he knew something — something about the glow, something about me — and I needed answers. That was all. I did not care about him. I did not want to see him.
I was a terrible liar.
The blood on the pillow scared me more than Caspian did. Because the second heartbeat inside me was getting louder every single day now. It was not just a feeling anymore. It was a presence — like something alive was curled up inside my chest, breathing, waiting, growing stronger with every hour that passed. And last night, I dreamed again about running on four legs through dark woods under a full moon. I woke up with mud on my feet and my heart pounding so hard my whole body shook.
Something was happening to me. Something I could not stop.
I was still sitting there, staring at my bloody pillow, when the door opened without a knock.
Garrick walked in.
He did not look at me right away. He walked to the window, looked out at the forest for a few seconds, then turned around. His eyes were flat and cold as always, but there was something underneath them today — something calculating, like he was running numbers in his head.
"Tonight," he said. "Pack dinner. You are coming."
I had never heard the word "pack" used like that before — not in this house. "What is a pack dinner?" I asked carefully.
Garrick studied me for a moment. Then he reached behind him and held up a dark red dress. He set it on the bed without ceremony, like he was dropping off a piece of mail.
"Wear this. Sit next to me. Do not speak unless I tell you to." He turned toward the door. "And Sable."
I looked up.
"Everyone in that room will be watching you tonight. They will be deciding what you are." His eyes were cold but sharp — sharper than I had ever seen them. "Make sure they see exactly what I want them to see. Nothing more."
He left. The door shut behind him, and I sat there, gripping the edge of the bed so hard my knuckles ached.
Everyone in that room will be watching you.
What did that mean? What kind of dinner was this?
The hall was huge — connected to the mansion by a long corridor that I had never seen before. Garrick walked beside me, one hand pressed firmly against the small of my back. Not guiding. Controlling. Keeping me exactly where he wanted me, moving at exactly the speed he wanted me to move.
The moment we walked through the doors, the noise stopped.
Dozens of people filled the room — men and women, young and old — and every single one of them turned to look at us. At me. The silence was so sudden and so complete that I could hear my own heartbeat echoing off the walls. Both of them.
I kept my face calm. I had gotten very good at that.
Garrick guided me to the head of the long table and pulled out a chair. I sat. He sat next to me, close enough that our arms almost touched. Around us, the noise slowly started again — conversations picking back up, glasses clinking, chairs scraping. But the eyes did not stop. I could feel them on me from every direction, studying me, measuring me, whispering behind their glasses.
I kept my gaze down at my plate. An empty plate. Nothing on it yet. Just my own reflection staring back at me — pale, quiet, trying very hard not to fall apart.
And then I felt it.
A warmth on the back of my neck. Not the burning sensation from the woods — this was different. Softer. Heavier. Like someone was looking at me so intently that the air between us turned solid. I knew, without looking, exactly where it was coming from.
I lifted my eyes.
He was across the room, leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed. Caspian. Auburn hair slightly messy, golden-brown eyes bright and steady, watching me with an expression that was not angry anymore. Not cold. Not guarded.
Desperate.
Our eyes locked. One second. Two. Three. The noise in the room faded to nothing. It was just him and me, separated by a sea of people, connected by something invisible and electric that pulled at my chest like a hook.
He did not look away. He did not blink. And the way he was looking at me — like I was the only real thing in the entire room — made something inside me crack wide open.
I looked down first. My face was burning, and I pressed my hands flat against my thighs under the table to stop them from shaking.
I could still feel him watching me. For the entire dinner — through the food being placed, through Garrick's occasional sharp comments to the pack leaders around us, through every bite I forced myself to swallow — Caspian's gaze never left me. It was like a physical weight on my skin, warm and constant, impossible to ignore.
Every time I dared to glance up, he was still there. Still watching. Still holding my eyes with that same raw, desperate look that I did not fully understand but felt deep in my bones.
Halfway through dinner, Garrick leaned close to my ear. "Stop looking at my son," he whispered. His voice was calm. Flat. But there was something underneath it — a warning, low and dangerous, like a blade being unsheathed.
I had not realized I was looking. But I had been. Again.
I fixed my eyes on my plate and did not look up again for the rest of the meal.
When dinner finally ended and Garrick stood to leave, he pulled my chair out for me. As I stood, I made the mistake of glancing across the room one last time.
Caspian was gone.
Not gone from the wall — gone from the room entirely. I scanned every face, every shadow, every corner. He was nowhere.
But on the table where he had been standing, right at the edge, was a single folded piece of paper.
And it had my name on it.
Written in sharp, urgent letters, like whoever wrote it had been shaking when they did.
Garrick was already walking toward the door, not looking back. Thalia was watching from across the room, her amber eyes locked on me with an expression I could not read.
I slipped the paper into my hand without unfolding it.
My heart was hammering. Both heartbeats — mine and the one that was not mine — were pounding in perfect rhythm, like they were answering each other.
I did not open the note until I was alone in my room, door locked, back pressed against it.
Three words.
They know. Run.