Chapter 39

• In the soft embrace of early morning, as a fragile light crept over the rugged landscape, Ellie swung her horse to a halt before Ricky Daniels’s modest abode_ a battered house that had seen too many secrets and sorrowful confessions. Drawn by an instinct as ancient as the land itself, she dismounted with a grace born of necessity and urgency, her heart pounding with the promise of something both dreadful and miraculous. Her feet carried her almost without thought toward the sick-room, where the pallor of illness and the quiet despair of the old lingered like a bad dream. Inside, the dim room was occupied by an aged Sam and his equally tired wife, both of whom sat in a silent vigil beside a creaking bed, their eyes heavy with the burden of years.
• But as Ellie entered, the atmosphere shifted with the sound of a deep, challenging growl_ a sound that belonged to none other than Grim Fang, the fierce, loyal hound whose spirit was as untamable as the wilderness. His growl, thick with the promise of protection, melted away into an eager whine of welcome the moment his eyes met Ellie’s. For in that subtle greeting lay the unspoken language of loyalty and raw instinct, a language that needed no words to be understood.
• Ellie’s gaze was drawn inexorably to the drawn, ghostly-white face of Jack, his eyes outlined in a delicate haze of blue-pencilled eyelids that spoke of countless sleepless nights and haunted dreams. With a sudden, desperate urgency, she rushed to him, her presence an unspoken plea for solace. Before she could reach him, however, old Sam_ a man barely roused from the throes of slumber-stretched out a frail hand in an attempt to restrain her. His wife, ever the vigilant guardian, pressed him back with a soft yet insistent whisper.