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"What should I do?" Sierra asked, sitting up straighter, a determination hardening her features despite the lingering fear in her eyes.

"Stay with us," I said immediately. "Don't sleep alone. If this thing visited you once, it might try again."

"I don't think I could sleep again anyway," she admitted.

"The sun will rise soon," Callum noted, glancing toward the window where the faintest lightening of the sky was visible. "Perhaps we should begin our research now."

I nodded in agreement, but made no move to release Sierra. Her body was finally warming in my embrace, the ice-cold touch of fear receding from her skin. I wasn't willing to let her go just yet.

"Archer," I said quietly, "you mentioned feeling dread from Sierra's memories. What exactly did you see?"

Archer's hands stilled, the daggers coming to rest against his thighs. "It was..." He seemed to be struggling for words, which was unlike him. "It wasn't just what I saw. It was what I felt. The absolute certainty that this thing was... wrong. Fundamentally wrong, in a way that defied explanation."

He looked at Sierra with newfound respect. "The fact that you could face that and still fight, still call out to us. That's remarkable."

Sierra blushed slightly at the praise, though her expression remained troubled. "It felt like it was searching for something inside me," she said. "Like it was... tasting me, somehow."

A growl rumbled from my chest before I could stop it, my demon instincts surging protectively. "It will not touch you again," I vowed.

"What exactly did it say to you?" Callum pressed gently. "You mentioned it said you would be 'theirs'?"

Sierra nodded, a shudder running through her. "It kept saying 'soon.' Over and over. 'Soon you will be ours.' And that the bond was weak and couldn't protect us."

"A direct challenge," I noted, my tail lashing angrily. Few dared to challenge my authority so blatantly. Those who did rarely lived to tell of it.

"But why now?" Archer asked, echoing Callum's earlier question. "Why Sierra, and why at this particular moment?"

We all fell silent, contemplating the question. It was Sierra who finally spoke, her voice small but steady.

"The claiming," she said. "It happened right after the claiming ritual. After we completed the bond."

"Could that be it?" Callum asked, looking between Archer and me. "Could the ritual itself have attracted its attention?"

"Or perhaps it was already watching, and the ritual represented a threat to whatever it plans," I suggested darkly.

Sierra shivered again, and I tightened my arms around her.

"Whatever it's planning, it wants us to be afraid," Archer said firmly. "That much was clear from the memory. It was feeding on Sierra's fear."

"Then we don't give it what it wants," I decided. "We arm ourselves with knowledge, and we prepare."

Callum nodded in agreement. "And we stay together. All of us."

Sierra looked between the three of us, her mates, a small smile finally touching her lips despite the fear still evident in her eyes. "Together," she agreed.

The word hung in the air like a promise, a defiance against the shadows that had invaded her dreams. As the first light of dawn began to seep into the room, I felt a renewed determination. This Shadow Beast, whatever it was, had made a grave mistake in threatening what was mine.

What was ours.

And it would learn, as countless enemies before it had learned, that the price for such a mistake was steep indeed.

20

Callum

Iwatched as Archer's face hardened with resolve, his ice-blue eyes flickering between Sierra and the daggers he constantly twirled between his fingers.

"I'll return as soon as I'm able," he said, his voice uncharacteristically tight. "Contacting my mother... it won't be easy for me."