Lightning split the sky as if it wanted to burn the world down.
The rain wasn't falling anymore—it was slamming.
Wind slipped through cracks in the rock, pounding their soaked bodies down to the bone.
It should've been freezing.
But Lucas stopped breathing for a second.
Because of the heat that flared inside his chest—sudden, irrational, like a switch being yanked on by force.
"What… the hell is this…" he hissed.
He pressed his palm against the cave wall. The stone's cold did nothing. If anything, the pulsing in his body grew stronger—slow, deep, spreading.
A faint pressure climbed into his neck and jaw, like a too-tight collar slowly cinching closed. His hands shook once, then stilled, as if his body were negotiating with itself.
Across from him, Silvara wasn't sitting calmly.
Shoulders rigid. Jaw clenched.
Her breathing was wrong.
Not from exhaustion.
More like… her body was being forced into a mode she never agreed to.
