Every Lycan around the table straightened.
The air grew heavier.
He took one step toward her.
For one impossible heartbeat, nothing moved.
Then—
The invisible red thread burst to life.
Iva felt it before she saw it—a violent pull deep in her chest, sharp and searing, as if something ancient had been ripped awake inside her. Heat exploded beneath her skin, her breath catching painfully as the air left her lungs in a broken gasp.
And there it was.
A glowing red thread, vivid now, no longer hiding—springing straight from her chest.
“No—” she whispered, terror flooding her veins.
The thread stretched across the space between them, cutting through the air with terrifying certainty, and then—
It connected.
Straight into the chest of the dark-haired Lycan standing before her.
Her wor
