Chapter 3

The Crown on the Door

The symbol stared back at me from the doorframe.

Three claw marks.

A crown.

Small enough that most people would miss it. Rough enough that it looked recent. The cuts were pale against the old dark wood, like someone had carved them deep and walked away before the rain could soften the edges.

My fingers hovered over it.

I did not touch it.

Nope.

Absolutely not.

Black Hollow already had enough personal problems without me petting creepy door symbols like some horror movie idiot who deserved what happened next.

Still, my stomach tightened.

Some broken piece of memory insisted I had seen it before.

Not clearly.

Not enough to trust.

Just enough to make my skin go cold.

There had been fire that night.

Rain.

Shattered glass.

Silver light crawling over the council hall floor.

And maybe, beneath my feet, a mark burned into the wood.

Or maybe trauma had taken the worst night of my life and turned it into a puzzle with pieces that didn’t belong.

That sounded like something trauma would do.

Rain fell harder behind me, cold drops slipping beneath the collar of my jacket. The neon sign above the bar door buzzed and flickered, washing the wet gravel in sickly green light.

I glanced over my shoulder.

The parking lot looked normal.

Trucks.

Motorcycles.

The police cruiser.

Black woods waiting beyond the edge of the lot.

Nothing moved between the trees.

Nothing obvious, anyway.

That was the problem with Black Hollow.

It rarely showed its teeth right away.

It smiled first.

Let you get comfortable.

Let you think maybe you had imagined the danger.

Then it bit.

A loud laugh burst from inside the bar.

I flinched.

Then immediately rolled my eyes at myself.

Great.

Very strong. Very mysterious. Terrified by a door and drunk people.

The symbol waited under my fingertips.

Three claws.

One crown.

The air around it felt colder than the rest of the doorframe.

Which was ridiculous.

Wood did not have moods.

Probably.

I forced my hand away and grabbed the handle.

The metal was cold enough to sting.

For half a second, I thought about turning around again.

Not because of Damien.

Not because of the pack.

Because of the symbol.

Because some part of me knew it was not random.

Because the thing beneath my ribs stirred again, slow and heavy, like it had smelled something familiar.

“Not tonight,” I whispered.

The wind dragged pine branches together behind me. They scraped and hissed like something answering.

Fantastic.

Now I was talking to doors and trees.

I pushed inside.

Warm air wrapped around me first.

Then sound.

Music from the jukebox, low and country and sad. Pool balls cracking in the back corner. Glasses clinking. A woman laughing too loudly near the fireplace. Rain tapping steadily against the windows.

Then the smell hit.

Whiskey.

Fried food.

Wet coats.

Smoke from the old stone hearth.

And wolf.

So much wolf.

Pack.

Territory.

Dominance layered beneath beer, leather, and rain.

Hollow Creek Bar & Grill had not changed much.

Same long wooden bar.

Same scratched tables.

Same green-shaded lights over the pool tables.

Same mounted deer head above the fireplace, still wearing the ridiculous Santa hat someone probably forgot to take down five Christmases ago.

For one stupid second, I almost smiled.

Damien had hated that deer.

Said it looked judgmental.

I pushed the memory down before it could become something softer.

The second I stepped farther inside, conversations thinned one by one.

A laugh died halfway through.

A pool cue froze above the table.

Someone near the dartboard muttered something under his breath, and the woman beside him elbowed him hard enough to make him cough.

Humans might not have noticed.

Wolves noticed everything.

And Black Hollow wolves remembered me.

For a moment, no one moved.

Then a voice near the pool tables whispered, “Is that…”

Another answered, lower.

“Frost girl.”

And every old wound in me remembered how to bleed.