"You're a terrible liar Iris."

I let out a shaky breath, gripping the sheets beneath me. My body felt heavy, like I had been carrying something far too big for me to hold. My hands curled into fists. They still tingled from earlier—from that unnatural power that had surged through me, unbidden, uncontrolled.

I had killed someone. A living, breathing creature. A werewolf.

And it hadn't even been difficult. Was taking a life always this easy?

The thought unsettled me more than anything else.

A sickening pressure built in my chest, crawling up my throat. I pressed a hand to my lips, swallowing hard as nausea rolled over me.

I needed to leave. Here—Avador—Estoria—this goddamn book I was living in. To get away. I had never felt this before—this urgent, suffocating need to run. But it wasn't just the weight of what I had done. It was something deeper, something raw.

A fear I hadn't allowed myself to acknowledge until now.

Atlas. Why was I thinking of him now?