Page 4

FOUR

EVRYN

T he blood on her knuckles wasn’t hers, but it felt personal.

Evryn stood still in the alley, her breath fogging in the early dawn air, hands shaking only slightly as she stared down at the crumpled shifter thug groaning in the dirt. She didn’t know what was louder—her pulse in her ears or the silence that came after the violence.

Something had shifted in her tonight. Not just her body, fast and sharp like a dancer with a blade, but something deeper.

She looked up.

There, on the rooftop.

A shadow.

No, not a shadow.

A man.

Black-cloaked, crouched like a panther ready to strike, still as stone but watching .

Her breath caught. Their eyes locked. And it was like falling—quick and cold and without bottom.

She couldn’t see his face in detail. Not really. But his presence slammed into her like a memory she couldn’t grasp. There was darkness in him, thick as tar and twice as dangerous. But it wasn’t just that.

There was grief. Bone-deep and brutal. And something else.

Loneliness, maybe. That particular kind of hollow that didn’t come from being alone, but from being empty.

She should’ve run. She didn’t.

He didn’t either.

They just… stared.

And in that stretch of silence, something unspoken passed between them—like matching scars held up to the light.

He vanished a breath later, swallowed by the mist, like the night exhaled and took him back. Evryn’s heart still thundered, but it wasn’t from fear.

Not entirely.

By the time she got back to the flat, Eamon was already pacing.

“Hell, Evryn!” he barked, nearly knocking over a chair. “Where the hell have you—? What happened to your face?”

“Calm down,” she muttered, tossing her jacket over the railing. “I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding. ”

“Barely.”

Eamon crossed the room in two long strides and grabbed her chin gently but firmly, turning her head to inspect the gash on her lip. “Who?”

“Three shifter thugs. Cornered me off Market.”

His eyes darkened. “You killed ’em?”

“Two. One ran.”

He grunted, stepping back. “You shift?”

“What? No.”

“You use the Sight?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

He gave her a long look, arms crossed, expression tight. “It’s happening more often, isn’t it?”

She didn’t answer, but her silence was a confession.

“I told you we need to go,” he said softly.

Evryn slumped onto the couch. It groaned under her weight, one leg shorter than the others. “There was someone else there.”

Eamon turned sharply. “Shifter?”

She shook her head slowly. “No. I don’t know. He was just… there. Watching.”

“And you didn’t run?”

“I should’ve. But…”

“But?”

She met his gaze. “I wasn’t afraid.”

That stopped him cold.

“Ev, fear’s not a weakness,” he said quietly. “It’s what keeps you breathing.”

She leaned her head back against the wall, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. “He didn’t feel like the others. Not like those rogues.”

“And how exactly did he feel?”

“Like a storm in a cage. Like the world gave up on him, but he’s still standing anyway.”

Eamon didn’t speak.

Evryn closed her eyes. “He saw me, Eamon. Like really saw me. Not like I’m broken or dangerous or weird. Just… me. I could feel it.”

Silence stretched between them.

“Girl,” Eamon said after a long while, “ain’t nothing scarier than someone who sees you.”

That night, the dreams returned. Only this time, the shadow wasn’t a monster.

It had silver eyes.

And when it reached for her, she didn’t flinch. She reached back.

Morning came with a sickly light, the kind that made everything look older and more tired than it already was. Evryn stood on the rusted fire escape, sipping lukewarm tea, watching the fog slither through the alley like it was hunting something.

She felt him again.

Not close. But not far. Like a cord tied between them, stretching just tight enough to notice.

“Still watching, huh?” she whispered.

She didn’t know who he was. Didn’t know what he was. But she knew he was out there.

Since she could remember, she didn’t feel like prey.

She felt like something else.

Evryn went out again that afternoon.

Eamon argued, of course.

“You got a death wish?”

“I’ve got groceries to get.”

“You’ve got me for that.”

“I’ve got legs. ” She smirked. “And trust issues.”

He grumbled the whole time but didn’t stop her.

She took the long way around the market. Avoided the alley where the rogues had cornered her. But she kept her senses sharp, shoulders loose, jaw set.

She caught no scent of him. No movement above. But the feeling remained.

That invisible tether. Tension in the air like before a thunderclap.

She didn’t speak to it. Didn’t look up. Just kept moving.

But every so often, her fingers would brush the bone charm at her neck, and her heart would whisper, I know you’re there.

That night, she dreamed again.

This time, he stood beside her in a garden overrun with shadow-roses. The sky above bled ink and ash, and still, she reached for him.

And this time he didn’t vanish. He took her hand and it burned like the truth.