In Chap­ter 10, the dense for­est pulsed with an eerie still­ness, a silence so thick it muf­fled even the crunch of fall­en leaves beneath their boots. Feyre and Lucien moved cau­tious­ly through the dim-lit path, their sens­es height­ened as the tem­per­a­ture dropped, an unnat­ur­al chill creep­ing through the air. A whisper—soft and insidious—slithered through the trees, bare­ly audi­ble, yet unde­ni­ably there. It car­ried no words at first, only the unset­tling sen­sa­tion of being watched, as though unseen eyes pressed into them from the shad­ows. Lucien tensed beside her, his usu­al sar­casm replaced with grim focus, his hand drift­ing toward the hilt of his weapon.

Then, the whis­per­ing shift­ed, form­ing gut­tur­al mur­murs that curled into Feyre’s mind like smoke, urg­ing her to look. A force unlike any­thing she had ever encoun­tered coiled around them, a pres­ence dark­er than night itself—the Bogge. She had heard of it in pass­ing, a crea­ture of night­mares, some­thing fae and mor­tal alike feared. To see it was to invite doom, yet resist­ing the urge to look felt like try­ing to fight the pull of grav­i­ty. The air thick­ened, press­ing against her chest, each breath laced with the bit­ter tang of decay. Her pulse thun­dered in her ears as the enti­ty cir­cled them, its whis­pers inten­si­fy­ing, promis­ing hor­rors that made her skin crawl.

Lucien’s voice cut through the ten­sion, sharp and urgent. “Don’t look at it. No mat­ter what you hear, keep your eyes on me.” His gold­en eye flared with warn­ing, his body poised for a fight he knew they couldn’t win. Feyre clenched her jaw, lock­ing her gaze on the dirt at his feet, forc­ing her­self to focus on the rhyth­mic cadence of her own breath­ing. The Bogge moved again, the whis­per­ing evolv­ing into some­thing almost melod­ic, laced with a sick­ly sweet­ness. It spoke of secrets and desires, weav­ing illu­sions that clawed at her mind, try­ing to lure her into a sin­gle, fatal glance.

Sweat damp­ened her palms, and her grip tight­ened on the knife at her belt, though she knew steel alone wouldn’t save her. Time stretched unbear­ably as the Bogge con­tin­ued its slow, cir­cling dance, its pres­ence weav­ing through the trees like a phan­tom. Then, as sud­den­ly as it had arrived, the pres­sure lift­ed, the whis­pers retreat­ing into the depths of the for­est. Silence descend­ed once more, the world resum­ing its breath­less still­ness. Only then did Feyre real­ize her nails had dug deep into her palms, leav­ing cres­cents of pain behind.

Lucien exhaled, his ten­sion eas­ing, but his expres­sion remained shad­owed. “It won’t come after us now,” he mut­tered, though there was lit­tle relief in his tone. “Not tonight, at least.” The weight of what had just tran­spired pressed heavy on Feyre’s shoul­ders, but she nod­ded, choos­ing to push aside the ter­ror that still thrummed in her bones.

They made their way back to the manor in silence, the encounter lin­ger­ing between them like an unspo­ken ghost. As they approached the estate’s glow­ing win­dows, the warmth of fire­light against the cool night should have been com­fort­ing. Instead, it only made the dark­ness beyond the trees feel deep­er, its secrets still lurk­ing just out of reach. Feyre bare­ly had time to col­lect her­self before they were ush­ered into the din­ing hall, where Tamlin’s pres­ence radi­at­ed ten­sion as soon as he saw them.

Lucien wast­ed no time relay­ing what had hap­pened, his voice clipped and mea­sured. At the men­tion of the Bogge, Tamlin’s grip on his gob­let tight­ened, the glass shat­ter­ing in his hand. Wine and blood min­gled on the table­cloth, but he paid no heed, his emer­ald eyes burn­ing with bare­ly restrained fury. Feyre had seen him angry before, but this was dif­fer­ent. This was a qui­et, sim­mer­ing rage—one that spoke of some­thing deeply per­son­al, some­thing ancient.

With a sin­gle, flu­id motion, Tam­lin rose from his chair and strode out of the room, his form shift­ing slight­ly, the beast with­in him dan­ger­ous­ly close to the sur­face. The air crack­led with bare­ly con­tained pow­er, a reminder that even with­in the safe­ty of the manor, dan­ger was nev­er far away. Lucien sighed, shak­ing his head. “He’s going hunt­ing,” he mut­tered, as if it were inevitable. “And he won’t stop until that thing is dead.”

The thought of Tam­lin fac­ing the Bogge alone sent an uneasy rip­ple through Feyre’s chest. She had sur­vived its pres­ence only by keep­ing her eyes averted—how did one fight some­thing they couldn’t even look at? She glanced at Lucien, search­ing for reas­sur­ance, but he sim­ply poured him­self more wine, his expres­sion unread­able. “If any­one can kill it, it’s Tam­lin,” he said at last.

The weight of the day set­tled on her, exhaus­tion creep­ing into her limbs, yet sleep felt impos­si­ble. As she lay in bed hours lat­er, the whis­per­ing still echoed in her ears, and the sen­sa­tion of some­thing watch­ing from the woods nev­er tru­ly fad­ed. The night had revealed an unset­tling truth: no mat­ter how beau­ti­ful this world appeared, it was laced with unseen hor­rors. And the most ter­ri­fy­ing ones didn’t need to be seen to be real.

This chap­ter mas­ter­ful­ly inter­twines sus­pense, mythol­o­gy, and psy­cho­log­i­cal hor­ror, peel­ing back the frag­ile illu­sion of safe­ty Feyre once clung to. It explores the chill­ing con­cept that some dan­gers do not require sight to instill terror—only the knowl­edge that they are there, wait­ing, unseen.