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By the time I focus on it⁠—

It's gone.

Another feed. Now it's at the back fence. Gone again.

Third feed. Standing beneath the maple tree. Watching.

It isn't approaching. It's everywhere.

"It's inside the network," Carys whispers.

"No."

I shake my head.

"It's inside the house."

A deep vibration rolls through the floorboards. Not an earthquake. A heartbeat. The walls groan. Pictures rattle. Somewhere upstairs, glass shatters.

Sayer gasps.

"It's coming."

The pressure slams into my chest like a physical blow. The front windows explode inward. Glass sprays across the hardwood. Wind tears through the cottage, carrying dead leaves that swirl through the rooms like living things.

The entity pours through the broken opening. No longer a distant distortion. No longer hiding. It has shape now.

Tall. Humanoid. Its edges still ripple like smoke trapped beneath skin, but I can finally see it. Eyes. Black. Empty. Old.

It looks at Sayer. Nothing else exists.

"No!"

I launch forward as my wolf tears free. Bones shift. Muscles expand. The transformation surges through me with enough force to blur my vision.

This time I don't stop halfway. There isn't time. The full wolf bursts to the surface. The entity meets me head-on.

The impact throws us through the remains of the front wall. Wood splinters around us.

We crash into the yard. It strikes first. Dark tendrils lash around my throat and shoulder. Cold.

Not temperature. Memory.

Suddenly I see flashes that aren't mine. Centuries. Families separated. Children taken.

Names erased. Lives rewritten.

It feeds on broken bloodlines. It always has. I rip free with a roar that echoes across the neighborhood. Behind me, I hear Carys shouting.

"Sayer! Stay with me!"

I risk a glance. Too long. The entity vanishes. My wolf screams a warning. Too late. It reappears inside the cottage. Directly beside Sayer. His body jerks toward it. Like iron pulled to a magnet.

"No!"

Carys grabs him around the waist.

"Fight it!"