The eyeless Apex beasts did not attack.
They held the clearing instead, arranged along the edges where pale stone met dead brush and the darker line of trees. Their bodies remained low, shoulders heavy, jaws closed but not relaxed. Every part of them seemed built for sudden violence: dense hides layered thick over muscle, forelimbs packed with springing power, claws pressed into the ground as if waiting for permission to tear it apart. Along their heads and necks, hollow vents and narrow ridges shifted with faint, unsettling movement, opening and tightening as though the creatures were listening through their skin.
Their faces had no eyes.
Still, every head remained turned toward Liam and Asher with awful accuracy.
