Chapter 5

Savannah Whitlock.

My legs, which had apparently decided to become functional again, followed without protest.

That was concerning all on its own.

He didn't pull hard. Didn't drag. The contact was barely more than a suggestion, his hand warm around mine as he guided me forward. Still, the second I moved, I could feel the room react.

Not loudly.

Just enough.

A shift in weight from the guards behind me. The creak of old wood beneath boots. The subtle hush of people trying very hard to pretend they weren't watching us leave.

They were.

Every single one of them.

I could feel their eyes following us as we crossed the entry hall. Sharp. Curious. Disapproving. Uneasy. Some of them looked like they expected me to suddenly bolt. Others looked like they were waiting for me to turn into a problem.

I kept walking.

The carpet runner softened our footsteps as Asher led me through the threshold and into the hallway beyond. Warm lamplight pooled across dark wood floors and polished paneling. The house stretched inward like it had no end, all old timber, shadowed corners, and doors that looked like they had been holding secrets for generations.

It was beautiful.

And deeply unsettling.

The entry hall had been loud with tension, even in silence. The hallway was quieter in a different way. More intimate. More dangerous, somehow. Like the house itself was listening now.

Asher still hadn't let go of my hand.

That fact lodged itself in my mind far more firmly than it should have.

My skin still tingled where our palms touched. The spark from before hadn't gone away entirely. It had settled beneath the surface instead, a strange awareness that made me acutely conscious of every step he took beside me. Every shift in his grip. Every inch of distance that didn't exist between us.

It was ridiculous.

I had far bigger problems than the fact that a terrifyingly calm stranger with dark eyes and a voice like low thunder had nice hands.

Focus, Savannah.

My gaze flicked sideways to him.

Up close, he somehow seemed even larger than he had in the entry. Not just in height, though he had plenty of that, but in presence. Like his stillness took up space. Like the air knew he was there and behaved accordingly. His shoulders were broad beneath the dark fabric of his shirt, his posture easy but alert, and there was something about the way he moved that made one thing very clear.

He could become dangerous very quickly.

The thought should have frightened me more than it did.

Instead, what unsettled me most was that I didn't think his danger was aimed at me.

Not right now, anyway.

That should not have been comforting.

Behind us, footsteps sounded once, then stopped.

I glanced back just enough to see Rowan lingering near the mouth of the hallway, watching us with an expression that was almost unreadable except for one thing.

Curiosity.

The second he noticed me looking, his mouth tipped into something faintly reassuring. Not enough to trust. Just enough to notice.

Then he stayed behind.

So it was just me and Asher.

Just me, following a stranger deeper into a house full of people who seemed deeply divided over my existence.

Normal. Totally normal.

I swallowed and forced my attention forward, but my thoughts were a mess of loose wires throwing sparks.

Pack house.

The words circled back again, refusing to leave me alone.

I had heard them clearly. Rowan had said them like they should make perfect sense. Like I was supposed to understand exactly what kind of house this was.

But I didn't.

Not fully.

I had guesses, of course. Wild, impossible guesses that didn't belong in real life. The kind of things people joked about in books and movies and Halloween stories told half-seriously around bonfires.

And yet.

Nothing about tonight had felt like a joke.

The people in that room had looked at Asher like he was more than just a man in charge. The scarred one had talked about “the choice” like it was some kind of betrayal. The tension had not felt social.

It had felt old.

Like this argument had been happening for a long time and I had somehow stumbled into the middle of it.

“Asher.”

The name left my mouth before I could decide whether saying it was a good idea.

He glanced at me instantly.

Just a look. Quiet. Attentive. Waiting.

My heart did something deeply annoying.

I cleared my throat. “That was... a lot.”

Brilliant, Savannah. Truly insightful.

A faint sound escaped him. Not quite a laugh, but close enough that I felt it more than heard it.

“Yes,” he said. “It was.”

I risked another glance up at him. “Do things like that happen often around here?”

His jaw shifted. “No.”

The answer came too quickly.

I narrowed my eyes slightly. “That sounded suspicious.”

This time, I did hear the hint of amusement in his voice. “Then allow me to amend it. Not often in that particular way.”

“Oh, great.” I exhaled through my nose. “That is so much better.”

That earned me another flicker at the corner of his mouth.

God, he was frustrating.

I should not have noticed how unfairly attractive someone looked while giving half-answers in a haunted lumber palace full of secrets.

And yet here we were.

We turned down another hall. A large window at the far end showed little more than darkness and the ghost-white smear of snowstorm beyond the glass. The old house creaked around us, not weakly, but with the kind of long-settled voice old places seem to have when they've watched too many years pass.

I wrapped my free arm tighter around myself.

Asher noticed immediately.

Without a word, he slowed half a step, as if adjusting for me rather than merely expecting me to keep up. It was such a small thing. Barely anything.

It hit harder than it should have.

No one had been gentle with me all night.

Not really.

Even the people who hadn't been outright hostile had treated me like an object in the room. A problem. A choice. A symbol. Something to be discussed and fought over and judged.

But not him.

Not yet.

The thought made something in my chest pull tight.

I looked down at our joined hands again.

His fingers were large around mine, careful in a way that suggested restraint instead of possession. As if he was very aware that he could overpower me and had absolutely no intention of doing it.

That should not have mattered.

It did.

“Savannah.”

His voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

I looked up.

His eyes were on me now, not the hall ahead.

“If at any point you would rather stop,” he said quietly, “say so.”

I blinked.

That wasn't what I had expected him to say.

At all.

He held my gaze. Steady. Serious. No mockery. No pressure.

And something inside me, something tight and braced and half-feral from the last hour, eased by a fraction.

“Okay,” I said softly.

He inclined his head once and continued walking.

We reached a set of darker double doors at the end of the corridor, carved wood polished smooth with age and use. He released my hand then, and the sudden absence of warmth across my skin felt immediate and strange.

I hated that I noticed.

He reached for one of the handles and paused, glancing back at me over his shoulder.

There was something unreadable in his expression again. Careful. Measured. Almost wary, which made no sense at all.

As if he was the one unsure what happened next.

My life had split.

I knew it with a certainty that made my stomach dip.

There was before tonight.

Before the storm. Before the whispers. Before strange eyes and stranger words and a room full of people who looked at me like my existence meant something I hadn't been told yet.

And there was after.

After Asher DravenHart.

After his hand in mine.

After the impossible feeling that whatever waited on the other side of those doors was going to change everything.

He opened the door.

Warm firelight spilled out from the room beyond.

And I stepped forward, crossing the threshold into whatever came next.