11-BLACKHAND MAFIA

The alley narrowed around her, brick pressing in on either side as if the space itself had decided to close its teeth.

Five figures at one end. Five at the other.

Dirty, stinking, rogues.

They simply stood there, watching her, waiting in a way that told her this had been decided long before she set foot into the trap.

Rose let her gaze move over them slowly, counting without turning her head, reading the way they held themselves, the lack of discipline in their stance, the hunger that bled through every loose movement.

One of them stepped forward, his grin crooked and careless, eyes lighting with recognition as he looked her over like she was already his.

“This her?” he called, glancing back at the others. “This the one she wants us to kill?”

A second voice answered from somewhere behind him, amused and ugly.

“Yeah. That’s her. The one that dropped Bernie.”

Rose’s fingers curled at her sides, her pulse settling instead of spiking as the pieces slid neatly into place.

“Bad odds,” Rose said, her voice level, almost bored.

The rogue in front of her huffed out a laugh, rolling his shoulders like he was about to enjoy this.

“Looks good to me.”

They came at her all at once, too many bodies in too small a space, confident in the numbers, confident that there was nowhere for her to go.

Rose moved before they closed the distance, toward the wall, her foot hitting brick and pushing off, vaulting to the other wall. She was using the narrow space instead of fighting against it as she drove upward, her body twisting through the gap they hadn’t expected her to take.

For a split second, she was above them, suspended between motion and gravity, then she kicked off hard and cleared the first line, hands snapping up beneath her as they tried to catch her, missing by inches.

She landed behind them in a controlled drop and didn’t break stride.

“Get her!”

She ran, not to escape.

To draw them out into the open.

Their footsteps crashed behind her as she drove forward, drawing them out to the docks.

The first one reached her with a wild swing that would have hurt if it had connected. She stepped inside it, drove her fist into his throat, and felt the fight leave him before he hit the ground.

The second came in low, fast, trying to take her legs, and she brought her knee up hard into his jaw, the impact snapping his head back before she caught him and sent him into the asphalt with enough force to keep him there.

Another lunged from the side, and she turned with him, using his momentum to send him crashing into the one behind him, their bodies tangling as they tried to recover.

Three down.

Seven left.

One shifted as he ran, his body tearing into wolf form mid-charge, bone and muscle snapping into something larger, faster, more dangerous.

Rose met him head-on.

She absorbed the impact, stepped with it, and drove her elbow down into the base of his skull with enough force to stagger him before grabbing hold and slamming him into the ground.

Once.

Twice.

He didn’t rise.

White-hot energy flickered beneath her skin, a sharp pulse that threatened to surface, but she forced it down before it could take hold, locking it away where it couldn’t betray her.

She didn’t need it.

The rest slowed, the easy confidence bleeding out of them as they took in the bodies already on the ground, recalculating in real time whether this was still worth it.

Rose straightened, breath steady, shoulders loose, gaze cutting across them.

“You sure you want to keep going?” she asked, almost in a conversational tone.

One of them snarled and rushed her anyway, pride outweighing sense.

She moved before he could adjust, a power strike that broke his balance, followed by another that dropped him, then turned straight into the next without losing rhythm.

From that point on, it wasn’t so much a fight but a massacre.

Memories rose up, of what rogues had taken from her, and she would never offer them mercy.

By the time the last one went down, the docks had fallen into a heavy, ringing silence.

Rose stood there for a moment, her chest rising and falling, her gaze sweeping over the bodies scattered around her.

All of them were down and never getting back up.

Her jaw tightened slightly.

“Bianca,” she said under her breath.

The name had barely left her mouth when the atmosphere dropped, alerting her to another darker presence.

An uneasy feeling slithered down her spine.

Slowly, she turned.

They stepped forward from the dark without hurry, as though they had been standing there the entire time, watching, waiting for the moment the fight ended.

Three of them.

Their long faces were drawn, stretched thin over sharp bone, their eyes pale and wet, fixed on her with a focus that made her skin tighten.

She had never met them personally, but she knew exactly what they were. Luke had spent hours schooling her on them.

A living nightmare, the ones behind the disappearances.

Inquisitors.

This was why she had stopped.

Why she had walked away from the fights, from the noise, from anything that might draw attention.

Because some things, once they noticed you, didn’t let you go.

One of them stepped forward, his expression unchanged.

“We have information,” he said, his voice shrewd, “that you are a witch.”

Rose blinked, then let out a short laugh, shaking her head like the idea itself was ridiculous.

“You’ve got the wrong girl,” she said. “I’m a werewolf.”

“Really. It is not the first time we have been made aware of your existence. You disappeared from our line of sight. Now we have fresh reports that filter in of a woman who can manipulate energy.”

His gaze didn’t shift.

“Who are your parents?”

“Arthur,” she said without pause. “And Jenny Rainer. Blackridge pack.”

“Pack?” he asked.

“Stonehaven.”

His eyes flicked briefly to the rogue bodies around them before returning to her.

“And you managed this savagery,” he said, his tone unchanged. “Alone.”

Rose shrugged, forcing ease into the movement.

“They picked the wrong girl to fight. I have been battling rogues for years.”

Silence stretched, thin and deliberate.

“We have ways of finding the truth,” he said at last.

She stood unmoving, defiant.

“You will come with us. You will stand before the Judges of the Inquisition.”

“No.”

The refusal rose through her instantly.

She shook her head slowly, her stance shifting as her body prepared to move.

“That’s not happening. I am a free wolf.”

They didn’t react, but the main one’s eyes promised something violent.

“Take her,” he said.

Rose didn’t wait for them to step forward.

Her body shifted, clothes tore, the change rippling through her in one fluid motion as she dropped into her wolf.

A wolf to be feared, large and regal, she stepped forward as a low, menacing growl ripped from her throat.

She would not go down without a fight.

They still didn’t hesitate.

“Submit now to the royal inquisition.”

Then a voice cut through the space between them, rough and low, carrying far enough that it didn’t need to be raised.

“You will not take her anywhere.”

Everything stilled.

Rose turned towards the sound.

He stepped out of the dark like it belonged to him, his presence cutting across the moment with quiet, lethal authority.

“This wolf isn’t going anywhere,” he said, his gaze settling on the three figures without the slightest hint of doubt, “she is under the protection of the Blackhand Mafia.”

Her heart gave a crazy little lurch.

Kaelyn.