Chapter 2: No Safe Harbor

My father’s estate was always intimidating, but tonight it seemed like a fortress. The mile-long driveway was lined with ancient oaks, whose branches jutted at odd angles and hung over us like wrinkled fingers. Walking up to the wrought-iron gates, they slid open without a sound — no security code required. They'd been expecting me.

The change still coursed under my skin, sharpening every sensation. I could smell the rain coming, hear small crows darting away from my car, feel the ancient power thrumming in the estate’s foundations. The gas-station pregnancy test I had taken lay positive on the passenger seat, confirming Sophie’s cruel revelation.

My phone had been buzzing nonstop since I’d left David bleeding in the library. I checked it one last time:

David: You have no idea what you’re getting into. Come home. Let me explain.

The Council is convening. They’re voting whether to hunt you down. You're safer with us.

Unknown: The kid alters the whole conversation. Caution is necessary, young Weber.

I shut off the phone and walked out into the night. As I approached the front door, it swung open.

"Inside. Now." My father snapped the command like a whip. He looked just like I remembered — steel-gray hair, expensive suit, eyes that could freeze hell. But now I’m seeing other things: how he walked, predatory and graceful, how the light reflected off his irises like those of a wolf.

“James—” Behind him, my mother appeared, her expression taut with concern. "Let her breathe."

"No time." He nearly pulled me inside as he slammed and locked the door behind us. "You stupid, reckless girl. Do you know what you have done?”

"Funny." My laugh sliced like a knife. “That’s what David asked me right before I threw him through a window.”

That stopped him cold. "You what?"

“He attempted to break the binding spell. Said he had been repressing my ‘true nature’ every night for a year.” The words poured out bitter and tough. "But something went wrong. I recalled the counter-spell. As Grandmother taught me in dreams that I considered “real” at the time.’

"Impossible." My father went pale, his face ash-white. "That binding was permanent. Unless...” His gaze fell to my midriff.

"James." There was a warning in my mother’s voice. "She doesn't know."

"Know what?" I demanded. “That I’m pregnant with some sort of hybrid super-wolf? That my husband has been embezzling millions from our foundation? That I apparently come from some ancient line of supernatural hunters? Because surprise — I figured all of that out tonight!”

The chandelier above us erupted and cascaded sparks. My parents stepped back, but I stood firm, power flowing through me.

"Well?" I challenged. Isn’t this what you wanted, Dad? For me to finally be ‘special’ enough for the mighty Weber name?”

“You don’t even know what you’re messing with.” He grabbed my shoulders. “That thing you’re carrying in your womb — that’s an abomination. The first of its kind. Half hunter, half wolf. “Every pack in the country would either want to destroy it or use it.”

"James!" Mom stepped between us. "That's enough! How else is she supposed to react? Can't you see she’s shaking?”

"She should be! The Blackwoods didn’t marry her for her money. They’ve had generations to plan for this, generations to breed a child that could break the ancient wards, the ones that bind creatures far worse than wolves into the shadow places of the world.”

Nuesa hit my nose like a wave. “What…what are you talking about?”

“Why do you think we worked so hard to extinguish your power?” Mom's voice was gentle. “The Weber bloodline is not only in the business of hunting wolves. We're guardians. Guardians of seals that imprison that which would obliterate all that we know. Your grandmother was the last real Guardian, and when she passed..."

“We had to bind your power when she died,” Dad finished. “You were too young, too untrained. It would have peeled you like a grape.”

“But now we’ve got the binding broken. I touched my stomach. "Because of the baby."

"A child of both bloodlines.” My mother's eyes were filled with tears. " This has never happened before. This combo is too strong…”

“Is precisely what David wishes.” I collapsed onto a chair, suddenly fatigued. “He said something like he was going to use it as a weapon. About the end of some sort of war.”

“Damn it,” Dad said, pulling out his phone. "Marcus? It's worse than we thought. Gather the Council. And James? Bring the grimoire. “I’ll just show her whatever she needs to see.

"Everything about what?"

"About what you really are." Mom sat next to me and took my hand. “About why the Blackwoods have hunted our family for generations. And the decision you’ll need to make.”

"What choice?"

Then be tempted to embrace your power and become what born to be: A true Guardian. Dad’s gaze were locked onto mine, steady, unwavering. “Or to allow David to take that child and use it to unleash hell on earth.”

Lightning tore through the sky, bathing the storm-drained garden in light. The shadows flickered and danced between the hedges, coalescing. Wolves. Dozens of them. Their eyes were like glowing coals in the dark, echoing the flashes of light like melted gold. They encircled the house, a silent army just needing the order to attack.

"Speaking of David." Mom’s voice was low and tight as she stared out the window, her fingers clenched around the edge of the table. “It appears your husband is here to claim his bride.

I stood, pulse calm, breath slow and deep. Power curled in me like a living thing, electric and insistent. It wanted out. It wanted blood.

"Let him try."

As soon as the words left my lips the front door blew open, sending planks and metal shrapnel across the room. A gust of wind brought the smell of rain and earth — and something darker, something reeking of malice. David moved through the wreckage, his golden eyes on fire, his handsome face contorted by something half human. His aura sang like a living storm, heavy with threatening danger.

Sophie and the others from the library fanned out behind him, their shapes shifting, caught somewhere between human and beast. Clawed hands, elongated limbs, teeth too sharp for human mouths. Their presence enveloped the house, an encroaching tide.

"Hello, lover." David was velvet over steel, his lips curling into a slow, cruel smile. His cursor seemed too sharp, too many. "Miss me?"

Something in me snapped. I had been running too long, fearing too long what was inside me. But now? Now the power that had lived under my skin, unbidden and unrestrained, for years finally unspooled. It writhed in my blood, a fire waiting for the spark.

This time I sensed the change was on the horizon and I embraced it.

"Mom? Dad?" My voice was calm, eerily so. “Now would be a good time to take a step back.”

David laughed, a deep, boozy sound that was the sound of arrogance. "Why? Afraid we’ll hurt them?"

“No.” I smiled as the golden light flared to life between my palms, ancient symbols forming in the air around me, glowing like molten runes. “Scared they will see just what kind of monster their daughter can be.”

For a moment, David’s smirk faltered. Just long enough.

The wolves lunged.

I acted without thinking, impulse guiding me. Power erupted from me, in a raw wave of force that blasted the first tide of wolves back, their yelps drowned by the tempest. I spun, the air alive as I lashed out, golden light sharpening as I pushed into the space around me. A stroke of energy sliced the air, cleaving a charging wolf in two as it leaped. It crashed to the ground with a strangled cry and then disappeared into a swirl of black mist.

Sophie roared, her half-shifted body quivering with rage. "She’s stronger than before!"

“Of course she is,” David snarled, even more transformed now. His fingers extended to claws, and his eyes glowed like molten gold. "She’s finally waking up."

“Too late for you,” I snapped, ducking as another wolf leapt. I turned and slammed my palm against its side, sending energy surging through its body. It fell with an agonized whimper.

David came forward, moving so fast he became a blur, reaching for me. I intercepted his wrist mid-strike, twisting wrenched it hard enough to hear the snap of bone. He hardly reacted, just smiled as the injury mended in moments.

“There’s no way you can stop this,” he whispered. "You are this. You and I, we’re meant to be together. A king and his queen.’

I met his gaze, the power inside me roaring defiantly. "Then let’s see who rules."

Unleashing one last boom of energy, I let out the last of my bindings. My eyes dimmed, and the heat and light enveloped me as I handed myself entirely to the Guardian inside me. My bones realigned, my muscles ached, and when I roared, the furniture shook.

David’s self-satisfied confidence dimmed into something else — something perilously close to fear.

That was just the beginning of the battle.