She didn't sleep again.
The heat in her chest faded after an hour, leaving her hollow and exhausted but unable to close her eyes. Every time she tried, she saw red eyes in the darkness. Red eyes, and the shape of something moving through the trees.
At midnight, she gave up on sleep and went to the window.
Main Street was empty. The streetlights cast pools of orange light on the wet pavement, and beyond them, the forest was a wall of black. Somewhere in the distance, a dog was barking. No not a dog. A wolf. The howl rose and fell, lonely and wild, and Clara felt it in her chest like a second heartbeat.
She pressed her forehead to the cold glass and closed her eyes.
Kael, she thought. Are you out there? Are you watching?
She didn't know if the bond worked like that. She didn't know if he could hear her thoughts, feel her fear. But she hoped he could. She hoped he was close.
When she opened her eyes, she saw them.
Two red lights, deep in the trees at the edge of town. They were small, distant, easy to miss if you weren't looking. But she was looking. She was always looking now.
They didn't move. Just watched. Waited.
Clara's breath fogged the glass. She didn't move, didn't blink. She stared at those red eyes, and they stared back, and for a long moment, the whole world narrowed to that single point of contact.
Then the eyes blinked. And when they opened again, they were closer.
Clara's heart slammed against her ribs. She stumbled back from the window, her hand going to her mouth to stifle a scream. Her phone was on the bedside table. She grabbed it, her fingers fumbling, and dialed the only number she had.
Elara answered on the first ring. "What is it?"
"There's someone in the forest. At the edge of town. Red eyes. They were watching my window."
"Don't move. Don't open the door. I'm coming."
The line went dead. Clara pressed herself against the wall beside the window, her phone clutched to her chest, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. She could hear her own heartbeat, too loud, too fast. She could hear the creak of the old building, the wind in the eaves, the distant howl of wolves.
And then she heard footsteps on the stairs.
Not Elara's soft, careful tread. Something heavier. Something that made the floorboards groan under its weight.
The footsteps stopped outside her door.
Clara pressed her hand over her mouth, forcing herself to be silent. The door was locked. The door was locked, and Elara was coming, and everything was going to be fine.
The doorknob turned.
She watched it, frozen, her whole body shaking. The knob turned slowly, left and right, testing the lock. Then it stopped.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Clara stared at the door, waiting, praying, not breathing.
And then something slid under the door.
She saw it in the dim light a shadow, thin and black, seeping through the crack between the door and the floor like smoke. It pooled on the carpet, dark and formless, and then it began to rise.
Clara screamed.
She didn't mean to. The sound tore out of her before she could stop it, raw and terrified. And as she screamed, something happened.
The heat in her chest exploded.
It burst out of her in a wave of light white and blinding, so bright it seared her eyes. The shadow at her feet recoiled, hissing like water on hot metal, and then it was gone, sucked back under the door so fast she almost didn't see it move.
The footsteps pounded down the stairs. The front door slammed.
And Clara collapsed to her knees in the middle of the room, gasping, shaking, the smell of ozone burning in her nose.
Elara burst through the door a second later, a long knife in her hand, her grey hair loose around her face. She took one look at Clara on the floor, at the scorch marks on the carpet, and her face went white.
"What happened?"
Clara couldn't answer. She couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but kneel there and shake.
Elara dropped the knife and knelt beside her, pulling her into her arms. "You're safe. You're safe. I've got you."
"It was here," Clara whispered. "It was in the room. A shadow. It came under the door."
Elara's arms tightened around her. "I know. I felt it. The whole pack felt it."
"What was it?"
"A messenger. Riven's way of testing you. Testing your power." Elara pulled back, her hands on Clara's face, forcing her to meet her eyes. "But you pushed it back. You held it off. Do you understand what that means?"
Clara shook her head. She didn't understand anything.
"It means you're stronger than we thought. Stronger than Riven thought." Elara's voice was fierce, proud. "You have Margaret's gift. And it's stronger in you than it ever was in her."
Clara looked down at her hands. They were still shaking, but there was something else now—a faint glow beneath her skin, like light trapped under the surface. It faded as she watched, sinking back into her bones.
"I didn't know I could do that."
"None of us did." Elara helped her to her feet, guiding her to the bed. "But now Riven knows. And he'll be back. He won't stop until he has you."
Clara sat on the edge of the bed, her legs useless. "Why? Why does he want me so badly?"
"Because you're the key. With you, he can break Kael. Without you, he can't touch him." Elara sat beside her, taking her hand. "But you're also a danger to him. A human with power—that's rare. That's something he's never faced before. He'll want to study you, understand you. Or destroy you before you become a threat."
A threat. Clara Vance, librarian's assistant and professional griever, was a threat to a werewolf Alpha who had killed his own family to gain power.
It was absurd. It was insane.
It was real.
The door opened again, and Clara looked up to see Kael fill the frame.
He was breathing hard, his clothes wet with rain, his hair plastered to his face. His eyes were amber, blazing, and there was blood on his hands.
"Clara." He crossed the room in three strides, dropping to his knees in front of her. His hands went to her face, tilting it up, searching for injury. "Are you hurt? Did it touch you?"
She shook her head. "I'm okay. I'm not hurt."
He exhaled, a sound that was almost a sob, and pulled her into his arms.
She stiffened for a moment—the blood on his hands, the heat of him, the raw intensity of his grip—but then she relaxed. She needed this. Needed to be held, to be safe, to feel something solid and real after the nightmare of the last hour.
He smelled like rain and pine and copper. His heart was pounding against her ear, too fast, too hard. He was holding her like she might disappear if he let go.
"I felt it," he said against her hair. "I felt you scream. I was miles away, and I felt it."
"What happened to your hands?"
He pulled back, looking down at his knuckles. The blood was drying now, cracking in the creases of his skin. "The scouts. They didn't want to talk. I made them."
Clara swallowed. She didn't want to think about what that meant. "Elara said it was a messenger. A shadow thing. Riven sent it to test me."
Kael's face hardened. "He's pushing. Seeing how far he can go before I break."
"Will you?"
He looked at her, and for a moment, she saw something in his eyes that scared her more than the shadow had. She saw the wolf. Not the man, not the Alpha, but the animal beneath—ancient and wild and hungry.
"No," he said. "I won't break. But I can't protect you from a distance anymore. Riven knows where you are. He knows what you are to me. From now on, you stay with me."
Clara blinked. "What?"
"You're not safe here. The inn has wards, but they're old. Margaret's power kept them strong for years, but she's gone now. Elara does what she can, but she's not a Sensitive. Not like you." He stood, pulling her up with him. "You come home with me. Tonight."
"Kael—"
"I'm not asking, Clara." His voice was hard, the voice of an Alpha giving an order. "Riven's messenger got past Elara's wards. It got into your room. Next time, it might not be a messenger. Next time, it might be him."
She wanted to argue. She wanted to say she didn't need a keeper, that she could take care of herself, that she'd just driven a shadow out of her room with nothing but her own fear and some power she didn't understand.
But she looked at his face—the fear in his eyes, the blood on his hands, the way he was holding himself like a wire pulled tight—and she couldn't say any of it.
"Okay," she said.
He stared at her. "Okay?"
"Okay. I'll come with you. But I'm not staying forever. Just until we figure out what's happening."
Something in his face softened. The hard lines eased, the tension in his shoulders dropped. He reached for her hand, and she let him take it.
"Thank you," he said.
She didn't know what to say to that. So she just nodded and let him lead her out of the room.
The mansion on the hill looked different at night.
The windows were lit now, warm yellow light spilling out onto the wet lawn. The iron gates were closed, and as they drove through, Clara saw figures in the shadows men and women, watching, waiting. Guards, she realized. Kael had posted guards around his house.
He parked the SUV in front of the door and helped her out. His hand was steady on her back, guiding her up the steps, through the heavy wooden door, into a world she'd only glimpsed before.
The inside of the mansion was warmer than she'd expected. Not cold and gothic like the outside, but lived-in. Books stacked on tables, blankets thrown over couches, a fire burning in a massive stone hearth. There were pictures on the walls old photographs, paintings, things that looked like they'd been in the family for generations.
Kael led her through a hallway to a room on the second floor. It was a bedroom, larger than her room at the inn, with a four-poster bed and windows that faced the forest. A fire was already lit in the hearth, and someone had left a tray of food on the table by the window.
"This is your room," he said. "Mine is across the hall. If you need anything, anything at all, you call for me. I'll hear you."
Clara walked to the window, looking out at the forest below. She could see the tree line clearly from here, the dark mass of it against the lighter sky. Somewhere in those trees, the red eyes were watching.
"How long will this last?" she asked.
Kael stood in the doorway, his shoulder against the frame, his arms crossed. "Until Riven is dealt with."
"And how long will that take?"
He didn't answer.
She turned from the window. "You don't know, do you? You don't know if you can beat him."
"I know I will." His voice was quiet, steady. "I don't have a choice."
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that everything would be okay, that Kael would protect her, that this nightmare would end and she'd go back to fixing up her cabin and figuring out who she was without Liam.
But she'd believed in happy endings once. She'd believed in plans, in futures, in the idea that if you did everything right, nothing bad would happen.
She'd learned better.
"I'm tired," she said.
Kael nodded. "There's a bathroom through that door. Fresh towels, clothes in the dresser. Elara sent some things over while you were working on the cabin today."
Of course she had. Elara thought of everything.
"Kael," Clara said as he turned to leave.
He stopped.
"Thank you. For coming to get me. For..." She gestured vaguely, not sure what she was trying to say. For everything. For being there. For not letting me face this alone.
He looked at her for a long moment. Then he crossed the room in three strides, took her face in his hands, and pressed his forehead to hers.
She felt his breath on her lips, warm and steady. Felt the heat of his hands on her cheeks, the thrum of his heartbeat through his palms. For a moment, they just stood there, breathing together, and the world outside the red eyes, the shadow, the coming war faded to nothing.
"I will not let him take you," Kael whispered. "I will die before I let anyone hurt you. Do you understand?"
She understood. She understood that he meant it, every word, and that was more terrifying than anything Riven could do.
Because if he died protecting her, she would have killed another man she loved. And she didn't think she could survive that twice.
She pulled back. "Get some sleep. You look like you need it."
He laughed, a short, surprised sound. "You're telling me I look tired?"
"Someone has to."
He smiled again, that rare smile that changed his whole face. "Goodnight, Clara."
"Goodnight, Kael."
He left, closing the door behind him. Clara stood in the middle of the room for a moment, her hand pressed to her chest where the heat was waking again, and listened to his footsteps fade down the hall.
She was in a werewolf's mansion. In a town that shouldn't exist. Being hunted by a man who had killed his own brothers.
And for the first time in six months, she felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.