CHAPTER 2

The lamp clicked off and the room drowned in darkness.

Ava’s breath caught. For a moment she couldn’t move, couldn’t even think. The silhouette beyond the curtain didn’t retreat; it lingered, those gold eyes fixed on her. Then, as if some invisible cord snapped, the shadow melted back into the mist and was gone.

She fumbled for her phone, thumb shaking on the screen as she dialled Rowan. It rang twice before he answered, voice hoarse.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s—someone outside,” she whispered. “Looking in my window. I saw—” She stopped herself. “I don’t know what I saw.”

“Stay where you are. I’m turning around.”

“No, just…just tell me what’s going on,” she said, forcing her voice steady. “I’m not a child, Rowan.”

He was silent for a beat. “Lock the window. Stay away from it. I’ll explain when I get there.”

The line went dead.

Ava crept to the window, yanked the curtain aside. The yard was empty, only mist curling between the trees. Her reflection stared back at her in the glass—pale face, wide eyes, hair mussed from sleep. Get a grip, she told herself again. You’re exhausted. Grief. Stress. That’s all.

But when she pressed her palm to the glass, it was cold and damp, and at the bottom of the pane a streak of mud trailed like a claw mark.

Rowan’s patrol car growled up the drive ten minutes later. He jumped out, scanning the yard with a flashlight before climbing the porch steps.

“You didn’t imagine it,” he said quietly. “There are tracks.”

Ava followed him outside. In the soft earth below her window a set of footprints led away into the forest. Not boots or bare feet but something in between—long, splayed toes tipped with deep gouges.

Her stomach flipped. “What is that?”

Rowan didn’t answer. He snapped photos with his phone, then crouched, brushing the edges of a print with his fingers. “Fresh,” he murmured. “And big.”

He straightened and turned to her. “Pack a bag. You’re not staying here tonight.”

“I’m not leaving my father’s house,” she said automatically. “It’s the only thing I have left of him.”

“Then at least stay at the station. We can set you up in the back office. Please, Ava. This isn’t safe.”

She hesitated. The mist pressed close, thicker than before, and she thought she heard a low, distant howl. She nodded. “Fine. Just give me a minute.”

Inside she stuffed essentials into a backpack—laptop, charger, change of clothes, the note her father had left. She paused at his desk. A drawer stood ajar. Inside lay a leather-bound journal she didn’t remember. The pages were dense with cramped handwriting, drawings of crescent moons, runes, and a symbol like an eye inside a pawprint.

She slipped it into her bag.

Back outside, Rowan held the door for her. “Ready?”

She nodded. They climbed into the patrol car and drove toward town. For a while neither spoke. The headlights cut a pale tunnel through the mist. Then Rowan said, “You’re sure your father never talked about the old pact?”

“What pact?”

He shook his head. “Never mind. Not yet.”

Ava glanced at him. “Rowan, what are you not telling me?”

He gripped the wheel tighter but said nothing.

They were almost to Main Street when a figure stepped out of the fog. Rowan braked hard. The tires screamed, the car swerving to a stop inches from a man standing in the road.

It was Silas Reed.

Even before Ava knew his name, she recognised him from the whispered stories of town—the outcast who’d disappeared years ago after a fight with the alpha. His clothes hung in tatters, his dark hair wild, eyes gleaming faintly in the headlights.

Rowan cursed under his breath. “Stay in the car,” he ordered.

He opened his door, hand near his holster. “Silas. What the hell are you doing?”

Silas tilted his head, a smile twisting his mouth. “Told you the pact was broken,” he said, voice low and rough. “Told your sheriff before he died.”

Rowan stepped closer. “You’re trespassing. Get off the road.”

Silas’s gaze slid past him to Ava. For a heartbeat his eyes burned the same gold she’d seen at her window.

“Welcome home, little Cross,” he said.

Then he bolted into the trees, moving so fast he seemed to blur.

Rowan swore and ran back to the car. “We’re going,” he said, slamming the door. “Now.”

Ava clutched her bag, pulse thundering. “Who was that?”

“Rogue,” Rowan muttered. “And trouble.”

“Why did he know my name?”

Rowan didn’t answer.

Rowan didn’t slow down until they were back inside town limits. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, jaw clenched tight.

Ava stared at him. “Talk to me. Who is Silas Reed?”

Rowan blew out a breath. “Used to be one of us. Left the pack years ago after a fight with Elias. Should’ve stayed gone. If he’s back…” He shook his head. “Nothing good.”

“Pack?” she repeated, the word strange in her mouth. “You keep saying that like—”

“Like it means exactly what it sounds like,” he said. “Wolves. Not just animals. Not just people. Both. The town’s been built around keeping the secret for generations. Your father was part of it. So was mine.”

Ava stared out the window. Mist and streetlamps slid past. “You’re telling me werewolves are real.”

“I’m telling you there are things in these woods you can’t explain,” Rowan said. “Call them what you want. But they bleed, they fight, they have rules. And right now those rules are breaking down.”

She pressed a hand to her temple. “This is insane.”

Rowan gave a humourless laugh. “Welcome to Silverpine.”

They pulled into the small parking lot behind the sheriff’s office. The building was squat and brick, its windows glowing faintly yellow. Rowan parked, killed the engine, and turned to her.

“Stay here a second.” He got out, scanned the street, then opened her door. “Come on. I’ll set you up in the back.”

Inside, the station smelled of coffee and paper. A single deputy sat at a desk, head bent over paperwork. Rowan led Ava down a hallway to a small office with a cot against the wall.

“It’s not the Ritz, but it’s safer,” he said. “Bathroom’s across the hall. Lock the door if you want.”

Ava set her bag down, still clutching the journal she’d taken from her father’s desk. “Rowan…if what you’re saying is true, then my father knew. All those nights he disappeared when I was a kid…”

Rowan’s expression softened. “He was trying to protect you. He always was.”

She sat on the cot. The journal’s cracked leather cover felt warm under her fingers, as if it had been sitting in sunlight. “I need to read this.”

“Go ahead,” Rowan said. “I’ll be in the squad room. Holler if you need anything.”

When he left, Ava opened the journal. Pages of cramped handwriting spilled out like a confession. Drawings of crescent moons, pawprints, names she didn’t recognise. In the margins, her father had scrawled phrases: the blood debt, the prophecy, the Cross heir. Her breath quickened.

One entry was dated only a week before his death.

If the pact breaks, the heir must choose: the pack or the hunt. She will awaken under the blood moon.

Ava’s hands trembled. She. Could he have meant her?

A noise made her look up. A soft scratching at the window. She froze. The office looked out onto the alley behind the station; nothing but darkness and a flickering security light. She stood slowly, moved to the glass.

A folded scrap of paper was tucked under the sill. She unlatched the window, slid it up just enough to pull the note inside.

It read, in a spidery hand: You’re not safe with them either.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. She whirled toward the hallway. “Rowan?”

He appeared in the doorway, brows drawn. “What’s wrong?”

She held out the note. “Someone left this.”

Rowan took it, scanned the words, swore softly. “Silas.”

He strode to the window, shone his flashlight into the alley. Empty. “How the hell did he get this close?”

Ava hugged herself. “What does he want from me?”

Rowan looked at her, eyes dark. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

Rowan closed the blinds with a sharp snap and locked the window. “We’re moving you to an interior room. He can’t keep slipping past my deputies like this.”

Ava stayed seated on the cot, her father’s journal open on her knees. “Why is he warning me if he’s supposed to be dangerous?”

“Silas isn’t a straight line,” Rowan said. “Sometimes he’s tried to help; other times he’s tried to tear everything down. He thinks the pack betrayed him. He thinks everyone did.” He rubbed his eyes. “I need to call Elias.”

“The alpha?” she asked.

Rowan nodded. “He should know Silas is back. And that he’s interested in you.”

As he left the office she stared down at the journal. Her father’s neat script blurred. The heir must choose. She flipped further and found a photograph tucked between the pages: herself at five years old on her father’s shoulders, the same eye-in-pawprint symbol inked faintly on her wrist in marker. She turned her arm over now. Beneath the skin, in the same place, a faint birthmark traced that same shape.

A door banged somewhere in the station. Voices rose, sharp and muffled. She slipped the photograph back into the journal and stood. Through the cracked office door she heard Rowan arguing with someone.

“…not your decision,” a low, commanding voice said.

“I’m responsible for her safety,” Rowan snapped back.

“She’s pack business,” the voice replied. “My business.”

Ava stepped into the hallway. Rowan stood near the squad room with a tall man whose presence filled the space like a stormcloud. Broad-shouldered, dark hair cut close, eyes a strange silver-grey that seemed to catch the fluorescent light. He turned at once toward her.

Elias Kane.

For a moment the station felt too small. There was something predatory in the way he moved, but also a weary gravity, like a man used to carrying too much.

“Ava Cross,” he said. “We finally meet.”

She lifted her chin. “And you are?”

“Elias,” Rowan said tightly. “Alpha of Silverpine.”

Elias’s gaze swept over her, assessing. “You’ve been in danger since the moment you came back. Silas won’t stop. Not until he has what he wants.”

“And what’s that?” she asked.

“That,” Elias said, “is the question. Your father kept you out of our world for a reason. But he’s gone, and the blood moon is coming.”

Ava’s pulse jumped. “What does that even mean?”

Elias stepped closer. “It means you’re not just some outsider caught in the middle. You’re part of this, whether you like it or not.”

Rowan moved between them. “Back off, Elias.”

The alpha’s eyes flicked to him, then back to her. “You’ll come to the compound tomorrow. We’ll explain everything.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Ava said.

A ghost of a smile crossed his mouth. “You’ll change your mind. You don’t have long.”

He turned and left without another word, the door swinging shut behind him. Silence filled the station.

Rowan ran a hand down his face. “Great. Just great.”

Ava hugged the journal to her chest. “What is happening to me?”

Rowan looked at her, something almost like pity in his eyes. “You’re waking up. That’s what’s happening.”

Before she could ask what he meant, her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:

He’s lying to you. Meet me at Hollow Creek. Midnight.

Ava’s stomach knotted. She glanced at Rowan, who was already reaching for his radio. She didn’t show him the text.