Chapter 105: A Monster in the Dark

That night, Bella couldn't sleep.

Dante lay beside her, his arm wrapped around her waist, his breathing slow and steady.

But she?

She was wide awake.

Thinking.

Remembering.

Dreading.

Gabriel was dead.

But now?

Now, someone had dragged his body back to their border.

As a warning.

As a threat.

Or worse—

As a message.

Bella sat up, the sheets pooling around her waist.

Then—

A whisper.

A breath of movement outside the window.

Her heart stopped.

She turned slowly, carefully.

And then—

A shadow moved.

Not a wolf.

Not a rogue.

Something else.

Something tall, skeletal, inhuman.

Something that didn't belong to this world.

And then, just before it disappeared into the trees—

It smiled.

Bella's blood ran cold.

Because she had faced monsters before.

But this?

This was something entirely new.

Something that had been waiting.

Watching.

Hunting.

Bella inhaled sharply, her fingers tightening on the sheets.

Because whatever it was—

It wasn't afraid of them.

And for the first time since she had become Luna, since she had survived war, since she had rebuilt everything from the ground up—

She was afraid.

And that?

That was the real warning.