Chapter 27. Moonblooded

At first, Kaelen let her go. She’d seemed overwhelmed—who wouldn’t be after being thrust into the center of a celebration that didn’t belong to her? A few minutes of quiet, he thought, maybe a walk to breathe through it. But when the moments stretched too long, and the sound of her heartbeat faded entirely from the crowd, something in him snapped to full attention.

It wasn’t just the absence. It was the silence.

The space where her pulse should have been—always just under the edge of his awareness—had gone still.

Sylas stirred hard in his mind, already on edge. ‘She’s gone.’

Kaelen didn’t speak. He moved.

He caught her scent on the edge of the celebration, faint and tangled in pine and night-chilled earth. He followed it into the trees, heart pounding, each step weighted by instinct too old to question. She hadn’t just wandered.

She’d fled.

He found her beneath a tall pine, its trunk rising like a sentinel above her. Mira sat at its b