LAYLA'S POV
The castle walls were suffocating me. Everywhere I went, whispers followed—eyes burning into my back, mouths muttering about me and Lucian. My skin prickled as if every stone in the palace carried their judgment.
So I slipped out.
The forest was the only place where I could breathe. The air was cool, damp with the scent of pine and earth. My wolf stretched inside me, calmer here beneath the canopy where moonlight broke through in pale ribbons. I wrapped my arms around myself and walked deeper until the noises of the castle faded.
Then I heard it.
The steady, rhythmic scrape of blade against wood. My body froze, every instinct alert. Slowly, I peeked around a tree.
Kieran.
He was sitting on a fallen log, knife in hand, a block of wood in the other. His arms moved with sharp precision, the muscles in his forearms flexing as the shape began to emerge. Even in something as simple as carving, he carried an aura of command, as though every cut answered to him.
