🗝️Detective Ryker Viltarin must uncover dark secrets before he loses not only his heart, but also his life.🗝️
You're on your own, far from home
The wind is blowing in the top of the pines
A gloomy sky where the sun never shines
Dee...
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The shrill whistle cut through the forest like a rocket's hiss. It seemed to get caught in the trees and glide between them before fading into the usual loud silence.
Alert as a predator, Ryker's gaze roamed, taking in everything surrounding him. There was a rustling there—no, it was too small. It was more likely a mouse, maybe another tiny rodent. Leaves trickled to the ground.
The ground was still damp from the recent rain, but the abundance of leaves made it impossible to spot a trail and guess where the boy might have gone. Only Chief's loud, steady bark showed which direction Liam had run off. A bark that ended so abruptly with the commanding whistle that his throat tightened with growing panic.
As calm as he tried to appear, appearances were deceptive. Ray struggled to keep his composure and clear his head. With every minute that passed, his chest grew tighter, the storm inside him louder and more booming. Between all the wild roaring, a single thought inside him was as sharp as a blade: 'It's all your fault!' it hissed through his subconscious, hitting the walls of his self-control again and again like swirling debris.
The guilt weighed heavy as lead on his shoulders and wrapped itself around his chest like claws, squeezing the breath from his lungs. Fear and worry ran like an icy shiver down his spine, and the muscles beneath the thick layers of fabric tensed anew with every step. With the tension, he felt the tremors running through his fingertips, pushing the pain of the shrapnel into his burning nerves. It was as if he had pebbles in his body that impeded his every breath. It mingled with the dull throbbing behind his forehead where the small stone had hit him. Blood smeared his skin and caught in red drops in his eyebrow. He resisted the reflex several times to keep wiping his forehead and eyes.
Instead, he kept blinking into the maze of leaves and trees, hoping to hear the rapid drumming of paws somewhere.
Everything looked the same wherever he looked: a sea of yellowish and orange colors, punctuated by the mighty columns of the old guardians, whose sparse canopy of leaves stretched into the sky.
His gaze slid unobtrusively to Eve, whose hand clung desperately to his as if he were her lifeline.
