The seven stones grew warm against his palms.
Alex pressed them flat to the ashen earth, feeling the pulse of them sync to something deeper than his heartbeat—older, quieter, the way tide-pull is quieter than waves. He closed his eyes.
"All right," he murmured. "Let's do this."
He didn't know what opening a threshold looked like from the outside. He suspected it was probably dramatic. There would be light, or the absence of it. Wind from nowhere. His mates would be watching from the rim with expressions ranging from deeply concerned to extremely ready to commit violence on behalf of one human.
From the inside, it felt like remembering something he'd never learned.
