1 The Letter

JAMIE

I was five years old when Thomas found me. I don’t like remembering much about what came before that. I remember my mother’s voice telling me not to leave the compartment beneath the floorboards. I remember the screams above my head, the smell of smoke seeping through the cracks, and hugging my knees to my chest until my legs began to ache. When I finally couldn’t hear anything anymore and found the courage to come out, there was no home waiting for me.

Not my parents, either.

Thomas appeared a few hours later, among the ruins of what had once been our pack, and decided that a girl covered in soot, dried blood, and trouble would be his responsibility from that day forward.

Twelve years later, he probably still regretted it.

“You broke Caleb’s nose.” I looked up.

Thomas was sitting behind the massive wooden desk in his office, a mug of coffee in one hand and documents spread out in front of him. He spoke so calmly that, for a second, I considered pretending I had no idea what he was talking about.

It wouldn’t work.

“It wasn’t on purpose…”

He stared at me.

“Jamie…”

“Fine… It was a little bit on purpose.”

Thomas slowly set his mug down.

“He needed three stitches.”

“On his nose?”

“His eyebrow.”

I made a small grimace. I genuinely hadn’t known that part.

“Caleb was messing with Ludo again.”

“And Ludo needs to learn how to handle his own problems.”

“Ludo is fifteen. Caleb is twenty-two and weighs almost twice as much as him.”

Thomas let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair.

He was in his early fifties, although the wars had added a few extra years to his face. His dark hair was already beginning to gray at the temples, and a scar ran along the left side of his chin before disappearing beneath his short beard.

Even so, whenever Thomas walked into a room, everyone noticed.

Not because he demanded attention.

He simply had that irritating presence of someone who never needed to demand anything.

“You know I’m not defending Caleb,” he said. “I’m saying you can’t break someone every time you get angry.”

“I don’t do that every time.”

I lowered my eyes to hide my smile. He raised an eyebrow at me.

“I get it…”

“Do you really?”

“Next time, I’ll warn Caleb first.”

Thomas closed his eyes for two seconds.

“I should have put you to work in the stables when you were eight.”

“I would have set the horses free.”

“Exactly why I didn’t.”

This time, he smiled.

Someone knocked on the door before I could celebrate my little victory.

“Come in.”

Will appeared with an envelope in his hand.

The expression on his face was the first thing that caught my attention.

Will had been with Thomas since before I arrived at the pack. He was a man who was difficult to impress and even harder to worry. At that moment, though, he was holding the envelope as if he wasn’t sure whether he should hand it over.

“It just arrived.”

Thomas held out his hand.

“From whom?”

“The messenger didn’t say.”

He handed it over. The paper was dark and thick, sealed with a simple circle of black wax. No symbol. No name.

Thomas opened it immediately.

That caught my attention even more.

He normally let half the official letters pile up on his desk until someone practically forced him to answer them. He opened this one before Will had even left.

He pulled out the sheet. Read it and stopped. His expression barely changed. His mouth simply tightened, and his eyes returned to the beginning of the page as if he wanted to confirm something.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

Thomas folded the letter.

“No.”

Will looked at him. Thomas noticed.

“You can go. Thank you.”

Will hesitated, but left and closed the door behind him.

I remained seated.

Thomas placed the letter beside the other documents.

“Where were we?”

I looked at him.

“At the part where something arrived in a mysterious letter and you pretended it never happened.”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

The humor I still had disappeared.

“What is it?”

Thomas didn’t answer right away.

“Thomas?”

He ran a hand over his face.

“Jamie, I have a few things to deal with right now.”

That was a dismissal. I could have pushed him, but I knew the man well enough to recognize when I wouldn’t get anything else out of him.

I stood.

“Fine.”

Thomas watched me for a moment, probably expecting a bigger argument.

“And leave Caleb alone.”

I stopped at the door.

“Only if he leaves Ludo alone.”

I walked out before he could find another reason to keep me there.

The problem was, I also knew Thomas well enough to recognize when he was hiding something.

And he was.

I waited a little over an hour.

Thomas left the main building for a meeting with some of the men responsible for the territory’s borders, and I did what any respectful daughter would do after receiving a clear order not to get involved.

I went back to his office.

I wasn’t proud of it.

I also wasn’t ashamed enough to stop.

I had searched Thomas’s office before. During my teenage years, he would usually confiscate something of mine and had the terrible habit of hiding things as if I hadn’t grown up watching exactly where he kept everything.

I closed the door behind me. The letter was no longer on the desk. I opened the first drawer.

Nothing.

The second contained reports, maps, and a small bottle of liquor that Thomas probably thought no one knew about.

The third held documents. I quickly rummaged through everything and put it back in the exact same order.

Still nothing.

“Where the hell did you put this thing?”

I went to the cabinet. Books, boxes, old files. No letter. I was starting to get irritated.

Tho was didn’t hide important papers in random places. He kept almost everything in his office because he trusted the people who lived there.

Or at least, he had until that morning.

I returned to the desk.

That was when I noticed one of the lower drawers was slightly out of place. I crouched down. It was locked.

I sighed.

“Seriously?”

I took a bobby pin that was holding part of my hair back, straightened the metal, and slipped it into the lock. It took me longer than I’d like to admit, but eventually I heard a click.

I opened it. There was a small wooden box inside. This time, there was no lock. I lifted the lid.

The letter was folded at the bottom.

A chill ran through me.

I picked it up.

For a few seconds, I simply stared at the paper.

Part of me still thought I should close it, put everything back where I found it, and pretend I had never come back there. Even though I hesitated, I opened it.

The message was short.

> “You have already been warned. Stop searching. There are things that should remain buried, Thomas. If you continue to insist, you will not be the only one to pay for what you find. Your pack will pay as well.”

I read it again.

Then a second time.

There was no name. No symbol. Nothing.

Just a threat.

And what bothered me most wasn’t someone threatening Thomas.

He had been collecting enemies for years.

It was something else.

Stop searching.

I slowly sat down in his chair, still holding the sheet of paper.

Thomas was looking for something.

Something important enough for someone to find our pack and threaten everyone who lived there just to make him stop.

And he had decided to hide it from me.

Or I heard distant voices outside and immediately folded the letter. I put everything back exactly where I had found it, closed the drawer, and stood.

Before leaving, I glanced at the desk one last time.

Thomas wanted me to stay out of it.

I respected Thomas more than anyone alive.

But respect had never meant blindly obeying.

Especially when someone threatened my family.

If it was nothing more than a letter, great.

But if next time it wasn’t just a threat, I had no intention of finding out too late.