CHAPTER 8

“Where did you get that?”

Mace’s voice had changed.

Not much. He still sounded like a man who thought emotion was a security risk, but something had cut through all that discipline. His eyes stayed locked on the necklace in my hand, on the little crescent-and-blade symbol resting against my fingers.

I looked from him to the iron crest on the opening gate.

Same shape.

Same impossible little curve.

“My grandmother,” I said. “Why does your murder mansion have my grandmother’s necklace on the front gate?”

Nicole leaned forward between the seats. “Yes, let’s circle back to that after we address the forest screaming.”

Another howl rolled through the trees.

Deep. Savage. Close enough to vibrate through the SUV’s windows.

Mace snapped his attention forward and hit the gas.

The SUV shot through the gate. I grabbed the seat belt with one hand and the necklace with the other as the iron bars swung shut behind us, sealing with a heavy metallic boom that sounded way too final for my comfort.

“Fantastic,” Nicole muttered. “Locked inside Werewolf Disney.”

I stared at her.

“What?” she said. “You were thinking it.”

“I was trying very hard not to.”

The private road stretched ahead, long and dark beneath a tunnel of old trees. Small ground lights lined the edges, soft gold against wet leaves and black soil. The city had vanished behind us like a bad dream. No traffic. No sirens. No apartment buildings stacked shoulder to shoulder.

Just woods.

Endless woods.

And something moving inside them.

A shape ran parallel to the SUV.

Large.

Too large.

I twisted in my seat, pulse kicking. “Please tell me that’s a dog.”

Mace didn’t even glance over. “It’s not.”

Nicole made a tiny sound. “I preferred the lie.”

The shape disappeared between the trees, then reappeared farther ahead, fast enough that my brain refused to build a sensible explanation around it. Gray-brown fur. Long legs. Eyes flashing briefly in the filtered light.

My mouth went dry.

“Is it with you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Define with.”

“On our side.”

“I hate that answer.”

“You hate most answers.”

“I hate bad ones.”

Mace’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. He touched something on the steering wheel and spoke into the car like the car was listening.

“North approach secure?”

A crackle answered. A woman’s voice came through, low and clipped. “Secure. Two vehicles paused at the outer road. They didn’t cross.”

“Mark them.”

“Already done. Lena’s waiting.”

Mace’s hand flexed once on the wheel.

Blood had soaked deeper into his coat, the black fabric shining wet at his shoulder.

I leaned forward. “You’re still bleeding.”

“I’m aware.”

“You say that like awareness clots wounds.”

Nicole lifted a hand. “As the only non-medical professional in this car, even I know leaking is bad.”

“It won’t kill me,” Mace said.

“Men say that about everything,” I snapped. “Bleeding, fever, chest pain, mysterious lumps. Then they show up in the ER acting surprised when their bodies file a formal complaint.”

Mace looked at me in the rearview mirror.

For half a second, his eyes weren’t annoyed.

They were assessing.

“You’re always like this?”

“Competent? Yes.”

Nicole pointed at me. “Also bossy under pressure. It’s one of her top five survival traits.”

Mace said nothing, but the corner of his mouth moved like it thought about becoming a smile and then remembered it had a reputation.

The road curved.

The trees opened.

And the mansion appeared.

I hated that my first thought was beautiful.

Because it was.

Not in the cold, museum way rich people liked to pretend was taste. The place was huge, yes, sprawling across the land in stone and dark wood and tall windows, but light spilled from nearly every room. Warm light. Lived-in light. The kind that made the wet driveway glow and turned the glass panes gold.

The house rose three stories high, with wide steps leading to a covered entrance and ivy climbing one side like nature had negotiated partial custody. A large garage sat off to the right, doors shut but lights on inside. I caught glimpses of several vehicles through a side window—SUVs, a sleek black car, something older and silver tucked near the back.

Beyond the mansion, past a sweep of garden beds and trimmed hedges, I saw water.

A lake.

Flat and dark under the dimming sky, surrounded by trees.

“This is not what I pictured,” Nicole said quietly.

“What did you picture?”

“Caves. Bones. Maybe a moon altar.”

“I had more tax fraud cult vibes.”

“You both talk too much,” Mace said.

Nicole smiled. “And yet you keep listening.”

He pulled up at the front steps and put the SUV in park.

Before he opened his door, three people came out of the mansion.

Not guards in matching uniforms. Not robbed cult members. Just people.

A woman with auburn hair in jeans and a sweater, holding a radio. A broad man in a flannel shirt carrying what looked like a coffee mug. Another younger woman with dark curls and an anxious face, wiping her hands on a dish towel like she had run out from the kitchen.

Normal.

Too normal.

The kind of normal that made the huge wolf shape standing at the edge of the driveway feel even more insane.

I stared at it.

It stared back.

Nicole whispered, “Nope.”

Mace got out first. The second he straightened, the auburn-haired woman moved toward him.

“Silver?” she asked.

“Blade,” he said.

Her expression sharpened. “Medical room.”

“I need to take them in.”

“You need to stop bleeding on my driveway.”

That was the first person I liked in this place.

I opened my door before Mace could come around and do whatever controlling giant-men thing he had planned. The air outside hit colder than the city, damp with trees and lake water. It smelled like rain, woodsmoke, and something cooking with garlic.

My stomach gave a rude little twist.

I realized I had not eaten since coffee and bad decisions.

Nicole climbed out on the other side, Jeffrey in hand. The bat looked ridiculous against the mansion and the armed-but-not-obvious tension wrapping around every adult in sight.

Ridiculous, but comforting.

The woman with the radio looked at us.

Her gaze touched me first, then Nicole, then the bat, then my necklace.

She went very still.

So did the man with the coffee mug.

The younger woman actually whispered, “Oh.”

Mace’s voice cut through the air. “Inside. Now.”

I turned to him. “You need medical attention.”

“I’ll get it.”

“Before or after you pass out and make a dramatic mess on the expensive floor?”

“I don’t pass out.”

“Everybody passes out if they lose enough blood. That’s not a personality flaw. That’s physiology.”

Nicole nodded seriously. “Science is bullying you, Mace.”

The auburn-haired woman looked at me with new interest. “Are you medical?”

“ER nurse.”

“Lena Ortiz,” she said. “Physician.”

“Great. Then you know he’s being stupid.”

“I know many things about Mace being stupid.” She turned back to him. “Inside. Medical room first.”

Mace looked like he wanted to argue with both of us and possibly the concept of blood loss itself.

Then another howl rose from the trees.

His expression hardened.

“Take them to the living room,” he told the younger woman. “No one enters without clearance.”

The younger woman nodded quickly. “Yes, Beta.”

Beta.

I looked at Nicole.

Nicole looked at me.

She mouthed, What the fuck?

I mouthed back, Later.

Mace started up the steps like bleeding was an inconvenience on his calendar.

Dr. Lena followed him, already tugging gloves from her pocket.

I called after her, “Irrigate first if there are fragments. Don’t let him bully you into just wrapping it.”

Lena glanced back, and a small smile touched her mouth. “I never do.”

Mace did not look back.

But his shoulders tightened.

Good. Let him suffer emotionally too.

The younger woman approached us carefully, like we might bite her.

Which felt unfair, considering the actual giant wolf watching from the driveway.

“I’m Talia,” she said. “Come this way, please.”

Nicole lifted Jeffrey slightly. “Do we keep our emotional support bat?”

Talia blinked. “Your what?”

“Bat.”

“Yes, I see that.”

“His name is Jeffrey.”

Talia’s eyes flicked toward the weapon. “I… don’t think anyone told me the protocol for that.”

“Then Jeffrey comes.”

I touched Nicole’s arm. “Maybe don’t terrorize the nervous woman.”

“She lives with murder dogs.”

The wolf huffed.

Nicole froze. “Did it understand me?”

Talia opened the front door. “Probably.”

“Oh, I hate that.”

We stepped inside.

And somehow the mansion got stranger by being ordinary.

The foyer was enormous, with polished dark floors, a sweeping staircase, and a chandelier that looked expensive enough to pay off my loans and fund a small clinic. But beside the fancy table near the door sat a pair of muddy boots. A hoodie was draped over the banister. Someone had left a paperback facedown on a side chair with a bookmark sticking out.

From somewhere deeper in the house came the clatter of pots, the sizzle of something hitting a pan, and a man’s voice yelling, “Who turned the burner up?”

Another voice answered, “You did, dumbass!”

Nicole and I stopped at the same time.

She looked around. “This is aggressively normal.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s suspicious.”

Talia gave us a nervous smile. “Dinner’s a little chaotic tonight.”

“Dinner?” I repeated.

“Grilled chicken, pasta, salad, bread.” She winced as something clanged in the kitchen. “Maybe bread.”

Nicole sniffed the air. “Garlic?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so the cult feeds people.”

“We’re not a cult,” Talia said quickly.

I looked at the giant symbol on the floor inlaid in dark stone, the same crescent-and-blade shape from the gate, then at the hallway where people had started gathering to stare at us.

“Sure.”

A woman came down the hall carrying a laundry basket stacked with folded towels. She stopped dead when she saw me.

A man behind her nearly walked into her, coffee sloshing over the rim of his mug.

Another young guy, maybe nineteen or twenty, appeared from a side room with a bowl of cereal in his hand. He froze mid-chew.

No one spoke.

They just stared.

At me.

At Nicole.

At my necklace.

At my wrist, where Xavier’s finger marks had darkened beneath my sleeve like my skin had memorized his grip.

I tugged the cuff down.

Nicole noticed and shifted closer.

The laundry-basket woman whispered, “Human.”

I turned my head slowly. “I know we just met, but if that was supposed to be rude, you should commit harder. Half-assed prejudice lacks flavor.”

The guy with cereal choked.

Someone behind him coughed into a laugh.

Talia looked like she might faint from stress.

The woman with the towels pressed her lips together and looked away.

Nicole’s smile went razor sharp. “Deena’s nicer than me. I would’ve started with ‘go fuck yourself’ and worked from there.”

“Please,” Talia said, voice small but urgent, “come to the living room.”

We followed because standing in the foyer while strangers mentally measured us for coffins did not appeal to me.

The living room was huge but not cold. Deep sofas. A stone fireplace. Shelves full of books, framed photos, board games stacked near a cabinet, and three half-finished mugs of coffee on the low table. Through tall windows, I could see the garden stretching toward the back of the estate and, beyond it, the lake glimmering between trees.

It looked like a home.

That made it worse.

Danger I understood better when it wore a bloody shirt and carried a gun. Danger with throw pillows and family photos felt personal.

Talia gestured toward the sofa. “You can sit. Do you want water? Coffee? Tea?”

Nicole and I spoke at the same time.

“No tea,” Nicole said.

“Coffee,” I said.

Nicole turned to me. “Seriously?”

“I’m scared, not dead.”

Talia nodded. “Coffee. Water too.”

She hurried out.

The second she was gone, Nicole moved to the window, then the door, then the fireplace.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Counting exits.”

“Please tell me we have more than one.”

“We have several. All likely guarded by supernatural linebackers.”

“Comforting.”

“Not really.”

I sat on the edge of the sofa because my legs had decided they were no longer accepting responsibility for keeping me upright.

My phone was still in my pocket. My scrubs were wrinkled. My sneakers had dirt on them from climbing down a fire escape. My wrist burned. My grandmother’s necklace was warm enough to feel alive.

I looked down at it again.

The symbol rested against my brown skin, innocent as jewelry had any right to be.

Grandma had given it to me when I was sixteen.

“For protection,” she’d said, pressing it into my palm with hands that smelled like shea butter and peppermint tea.

Protection from what, Grandma?

Because if the answer was giant men, hacked hospital records, armed assholes, and whatever the hell had just howled in the trees, she had left out several important details.

Nicole came to sit beside me. Close enough that our shoulders touched.

“You okay?” she asked quietly.

I almost lied.

Then I thought of the man at my apartment aiming a gun at me like I was a package he’d been sent to collect.

“No,” I said. “But I’m functional.”

“Same.”

“That’s our family motto.”

She nudged my knee with hers. “We’ll get answers.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then I start breaking rich people’s decorative shit.”

I smiled despite everything.

My left dimple appeared. I knew because Nicole’s eyes flicked to it, and her face softened like that tiny proof of life mattered more than I could understand.

Then voices rose outside the living room.

Low.

Male.

Angry.

One of them belonged to Mace.

The other was unfamiliar, older, smooth in a way that made my skin prickle.

“She cannot be here,” the older man said.

“She was attacked in the city,” Mace replied.

“She should never have been left uncontained.”

Contained.

My smile vanished.

Nicole’s hand found Jeffrey.

I stood.

The living room door opened before I reached it.

An older man stepped inside.

He was tall, though not as tall as Mace, with dark gray hair, a charcoal suit, and eyes that looked too calm to be kind. His gaze passed over Nicole like she was furniture, then landed on me.

No.

Not on me.

On the necklace.

His expression cracked for one breath.

Just one.

Then it smoothed over.

“Miss Williams,” he said. “I am Silas Evers.”

Another Evers.

Great.

Apparently they came in varieties.

I folded my arms. “Does everyone in this family make creepy entrances, or is that just a house tradition?”

Nicole made a sound that might have been a laugh if she weren’t holding a bat like a threat.

Silas did not smile. “You have caused considerable disruption.”

“I saved a man’s life.”

“And spilled blood where it did not belong.”

My pulse stumbled.

Nicole stepped forward. “Careful.”

Silas finally looked at her. “And you are?”

“The reason you should rethink your tone.”

For a second, the air in the room tightened.

Then Mace appeared behind Silas, one shoulder freshly bandaged beneath a clean black shirt. His face had less color than before, but his posture was still carved from stubborn stone.

“Mace,” I said, “your creepy relative is doing the thing where he talks like a villain in a locked room.”

“He is not my relative.”

“Lucky you.”

Silas’s eyes narrowed.

Mace looked at the necklace again, then at my wrist. His mouth tightened like he had questions he was not allowed to ask.

“You need to speak with Xavier,” he said.

“Finally,” I said. “A sentence with purpose.”

Nicole moved with me.

Silas lifted a hand. “Only Miss Williams.”

Nicole smiled at him.

It was not friendly.

“I don’t care if he’s king of the wolves, the woods, or the moon,” she said. “If he hurts her, I’m making it his problem. So wherever she goes, I go.”

The room went silent.

Mace shut his eyes for half a second, like he was praying for strength he did not believe in.

Silas stared at Nicole as if she had just committed a felony with excellent posture.

Then the temperature in the room seemed to drop.

Not literally.

Worse.

Every person in the hallway went still.

The murmuring from the kitchen stopped. No more pans. No more voices. Even the wolf outside let out a low sound that was not quite a growl and not quite a warning.

Mace turned toward the doorway.

His spine straightened.

Silas stepped back.

And then he entered.

Xavier Evers filled the doorway like the house had been built around the idea of him.

Alive.

Very tall. Broad enough to make Mace look less impossible, which was saying something. His long dark-blond hair was loose around his shoulders, messy like he had run his hand through it one too many times. Bruises shadowed one side of his jaw, fading too fast. A bandage disappeared beneath the collar of his black shirt.

But his eyes were exactly the same.

Blue.

Cold.

Fixed on me with a fury that made the air hard to breathe.

My wrist burned.

The necklace heated against my chest.

Every person in the room lowered their gaze.

Even Mace.

Nicole whispered, “Oh, fuck.”

Mace bowed his head.

“My king,” he said.