Chapter Four

It walked like a man.

But everything else was wrong.

Too tall. Too wide. The way its head moved — slow, side to side, like it was tasting the air rather than seeing through it. Its eyes caught the afternoon light and reflected back nothing. Just flat, empty dark.

It was looking straight at me.

"Don't move." Adrian's voice was barely a breath against my ear. His hand stayed firm at the back of my neck. "Don't make a sound."

I couldn't have moved if I tried.

Karl stepped in front of me.

Just like that. One step — shoulder width, chin up, eyes burning solid gold. He put his entire body between me and that thing without hesitating for even a second.

Something about that cracked right through my chest.

The Rogue tilted its head.

Then it smiled.

Wrong teeth. Too many. Too sharp.

"Lure." Its voice came out layered — like two sounds stacked on top of each other, one human, one very much not. "I've been following your scent for three days." Its flat eyes moved from Karl to Adrian and back. "You found yourself two guardians. How sweet."

"Leave." Adrian's voice was different now — stripped clean of everything warm, everything careful. Pure cold command underneath. "This campus is claimed territory. You have no rights here."

The Rogue laughed.

It sounded like gravel in a drain.

"Claimed by who?" It took one slow step forward. "You?" Its eyes moved to Karl. "A half-turned pup who can't even control his own shift?" Another step. "Or you?" Back to Adrian. "A Hunter playing babysitter?"

Karl's shoulders rolled back.

"Karl." Adrian's warning was quiet. Sharp.

"I heard it." But Karl's hands were fisting at his sides, that heat radiating off him in visible waves now. The gold in his eyes was burning brighter with every second.

I pressed closer to Adrian without thinking.

His hand moved from my neck to my waist. Firm. Immediate.

The Rogue's flat eyes dropped to that hand.

And its expression changed.

"Oh," it said softly. "It's like that."

It moved.

Not walked — moved. One second it was twenty feet away, the next Karl's fist connected with its jaw and they both crashed into the tree line in an explosion of bark and branches. The ground actually shook.

"Run." Adrian spun me toward the path. "The building behind you — glass doors — go."

"I'm not leaving you—"

"Ethan." His eyes hit mine. Silver on fire. "Trust me. Go."

I ran.

I made it through the glass doors and straight into an empty seminar room, back against the wall, chest heaving.

Through the window I could see them.

Karl and the Rogue moved like something out of a nightmare — too fast, too brutal, crashing through trees like they weighed nothing. Karl's shirt was gone somehow, his back shifting wrongly beneath the skin, that spine-ridge thing from the locker room pushing through as he fought to hold his human shape and his strength at the same time.

Adrian moved differently.

No shifting. No rage. Just precise, surgical — he moved around the Rogue like he already knew every move it was going to make before it made them. His eyes were fully luminous now, that silver burning white, and every time he put his hands on the Rogue something seemed to drain out of it. Like Adrian was pulling something directly out of its body.

Something older, he'd said.

I was starting to understand what that meant.

It took four minutes.

Then it was over.

The Rogue was on the ground. Not dead — but down. Karl stood over it, chest heaving, still half-shifted, gold eyes blazing. Adrian crouched beside it and said something low I couldn't hear through the glass.

Whatever he said made the Rogue flinch.

Then Adrian stood, straightened his jacket, and walked toward the building.

He came through the door and found me immediately.

Three steps across the room and his hands were on my face — both palms, tilting me up, those burning silver eyes scanning every inch of me.

"Are you hurt?"

"No." My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "Are you—"

"I'm fine." His thumbs moved across my cheekbones. Slow. Like he was checking. Like he needed to feel it to believe it. "You're okay."

"Adrian—"

"You're okay." He said it again. Quieter. Like it was for him more than me.

I grabbed his wrists.

He went completely still.

We were close. Too close. His breath was unsteady for the first time since I'd met him — actually unsteady — and his eyes had dropped to my mouth and come back up like he'd caught himself doing something he shouldn't.

"You were scared," I said. "For me."

"I told you." His voice was rough. "I've been watching over you for two years."

"That's not the same thing."

His jaw tightened.

"No," he admitted. "It isn't."

The door crashed open.

Karl filled the frame, shirt destroyed, still riding the edge of his shift — chest heaving, eyes blazing gold, a cut bleeding freely above his eyebrow that was already closing as I watched.

He took one look at Adrian's hands on my face.

"Get your hands off him." His voice was pure gravel.

"Karl—" I started.

"I mean it Adrian. Now."

Adrian lowered his hands slowly. Unhurried. Deliberate in a way that was clearly designed to make Karl insane.

It worked.

Karl crossed the room in four steps, took my face in both his hands — rougher than Adrian, warmer, desperate in a way he wasn't trying to hide — and searched my face with those gold eyes.

"Did it touch you?"

"No—"

"Did it get close to you—"

"Karl, I'm fine—"

"I need to know." His forehead dropped to mine. Just like that. Like he couldn't help it. His breath was ragged, his hands trembling slightly against my jaw. "I need to hear you say it."

My heart was doing completely unacceptable things.

"I'm fine," I said softly. "I promise."

He exhaled. Long. Shaky.

His lips brushed my forehead.

Just once. Barely there. Like he didn't even realize he'd done it.

Behind him, I saw Adrian watching.

His face was completely neutral.

But his hands — hanging at his sides — were fists.

We sat in that empty seminar room for twenty minutes while Karl's shift settled and Adrian made a phone call in a language I didn't recognize.

When he hung up his expression was back — the mask, the composure, all of it locked down tight.

But I'd seen underneath it now.

I couldn't unsee it.

"The Rogue will be dealt with," he said. "But it wasn't alone."

Karl looked up sharply. "What?"

"It was a scout." Adrian's silver eyes moved to me. "Something sent it here specifically. To confirm your location." A pause. "Someone out there already knows exactly what you are, Ethan. And they want you badly enough to send hunters."

The room went quiet.

"Who?" I asked.

Adrian opened his mouth.

My phone rang.

Unknown number.

I looked at Adrian. He gave me one short nod.

I answered.

Silence on the line.

Then a voice — smooth, unhurried, almost warm — said—

"Hello, Ethan. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a very long time."

The voice was familiar.

Horrifyingly, impossibly familiar.

I knew that voice.

I'd known it my entire life.