Chapter 8

I kept my hand on the door handle and listened to the stranger on the other side, wondering how she had discovered my name and why her warning sounded more like a promise than a threat.

“Open the door, Elena,” she said quietly. “If I wanted to drag you back to Blood Moon, I wouldn't be standing here alone.”

I hated that her words made sense. After everything I had endured, trusting a stranger seemed foolish, but remaining in the boarding house while someone searched for me was equally dangerous.

I unlocked the door without removing the chain and opened it just far enough to see a woman in her late thirties standing beneath the corridor lamp. She wore a dark jacket over a plain shirt, and her brown hair was tied back carelessly. There was nothing particularly threatening about her appearance, although her steady gaze suggested she was accustomed to making decisions without waiting for permission.

“My name is Mara Quinn,” she said. “I own a veterinary clinic a few miles from here, near the border road. Travelers bring injured animals to me, and sometimes they bring trouble along with them. I've learned to recognize when someone needs help but doesn't know how to ask for it.”

“I didn't ask you for anything.”

“No, you didn't.” Her gaze moved briefly over my face, taking in my exhaustion without making a spectacle of it. “But you look like you haven't slept properly in days, and I doubt you came here because you wanted a holiday.”

I tightened my grip on the door. “How do you know my name?”

Mara hesitated, and that small pause unsettled me more than an immediate answer would have. “I heard it from someone who knows people around these parts. I won't pretend I understand everything happening beyond the border, but I know enough to recognize that being found might be dangerous for you.”

“That doesn't explain why you're helping me.”

“Perhaps it doesn't.” She glanced toward the staircase, where a floorboard creaked beneath the weight of someone moving in another room. “I have a spare room at the clinic and more work than I can manage alone. You could help me clean, organize supplies, and care for animals that need feeding. In exchange, you'd have a place to sleep and something to eat. I won't demand your history as payment.”

I wanted to believe her. The offer was simple, practical, and free of the humiliating pity I had grown accustomed to receiving from people who considered themselves better than me. Yet every kindness in my life seemed to carry a hidden price, and I had learned to look for it before accepting anything.

“I can't stay long,” I told her.

“You don't have to decide how long you'll stay tonight. Just decide whether you'd rather keep moving until you collapse or get a few hours of proper rest.”

Her bluntness irritated me, partly because it left so little room for the excuses I had prepared.

I had spent the day imagining how I would survive without a pack, without family, and without money enough to last more than a few days. A room and work would not solve everything, but they would give me time to think. Time was the one thing I had been unable to find since Adrian rejected me.

“What kind of animals?” I asked.

“Mostly dogs and cats. Occasionally livestock when someone can't get a larger animal to a proper facility. Nothing glamorous, and the work can be unpleasant.”

“I can manage unpleasant.”

Something shifted in her expression, not quite a smile but close enough to soften her face. “I thought you might say that.”

I stepped back to collect my small bag, keeping my other hand near my stomach. Mara noticed the movement, but she did not ask about it.

That restraint made me more willing to follow her than any reassurance could have done. Before leaving, I paid for the night I had already used, unwilling to owe the boarding-house owner anything that might become another problem later.

Mara led me outside to an old pickup truck parked behind the building. The journey took less than twenty minutes, following a narrow road that curved between scattered houses and stretches of dark woodland.

I watched the trees pass through the window, searching the shadows whenever the headlights caught a shape that looked too large to be a stray dog. I told myself I was being ridiculous, but the memory of the wolves in the forest refused to loosen its grip on me.

The clinic stood behind a low fence at the edge of a small property. Its white paint had begun to peel, and a weathered sign hung beside the entrance, but warm light spilled from the windows. A kennel occupied one side of the building, and I could hear a dog shifting restlessly behind the fence. The smell of disinfectant and animal bedding reached me as Mara unlocked the door.

“It's not much,” she said, switching on the lights. “But it's safe enough if people leave us alone.”

Inside, the clinic was modest and orderly. Shelves held bottles, bandages, and medical supplies, while a narrow examination table stood beneath a bright lamp. A sleepy brown dog lifted its head from a blanket in the corner, watched me for a moment, and then settled again.

Mara showed me the storage cupboard, the washroom, and the small room at the back where I would sleep. The bed was narrow, but there were clean sheets and a lock on the door. After the uncertainty of the previous days, those ordinary things felt almost luxurious.

“You can start helping tomorrow,” she said. “Tonight, eat something and get some sleep.”

“I'll pay you when I can.”

“We'll discuss that when there's money to discuss. For now, I need someone who can follow instructions and won't frighten the animals.”

“I won't.”

“I hope not. The ginger cat in the examination room has already bitten two people this week.”

Despite myself, I laughed softly. The sound surprised me, and Mara seemed pleased that she had managed to draw it from me. She left a plate of food on the small table and returned to the front of the clinic, giving me privacy without making me feel abandoned.

When I was alone, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my hands. I had given Mara no explanation for my flight, and she had not demanded one, but the name on the boarding-house register remained a problem.

Elena Blackwood belonged to a history I could not afford to carry openly. It belonged to the girl who had been blamed for her mother's death, the woman who had been treated as an embarrassment by her own household, and the rejected mate whose humiliation had become public entertainment.

I could not erase that history simply by changing a name, but perhaps I could make it harder for the people hunting me to find me.

When Mara returned to check whether I needed anything, I had made my decision.

“If anyone asks about me,” I said, “tell them my name is Elena Vale.”

She studied me for a moment. “Is that your real name?”

“It's the name I want to use here.”

Mara nodded slowly, accepting the boundary without pretending it answered every question. “All right, Elena Vale. I'll use that name, and I won't volunteer anything else about you. But if someone dangerous comes looking, I need you to tell me enough to keep the clinic out of trouble.”

“That seems fair.”

It was the first agreement I had made since leaving Blood Moon that felt like a choice rather than an order. I knew the new name could not protect me from everything, but it gave me something small to hold on to: a chance to decide what strangers would know about me before they decided what I was worth.

Far away, Adrian Blackthorn was discovering that his search for me had become more complicated than he had expected. The reports reaching him contained no reliable account of my movements near the border, despite indications that I had crossed into the surrounding settlements. When he questioned the omissions, the explanations offered by his warriors were vague and inconsistent.

Someone had seen me, and someone had chosen not to report it.

Adrian ordered Marcus Hale to identify the person responsible, but Marcus concealed his own suspicions while privately examining reports of the unusual wolves that had bowed as I left Blood Moon territory. He had no proof of what the sighting meant, only the uneasy conviction that my disappearance and the wolves' behavior were connected in ways the pack did not understand.

I knew none of this as I finished my food and prepared for sleep. I was too exhausted to consider the politics unfolding behind me, and I wanted desperately to believe that the clinic might offer a few quiet days before the past caught up.

Then a howl rose from the woods beyond the fence.

I sat upright, my heart pounding as another answered from farther away. A third sounded from the opposite side of the property, followed by another that seemed to come from the road behind the clinic. Within moments, the night was filled with voices calling to one another from every direction, surrounding the building without revealing a single shape in the darkness.

I moved toward the window and pulled the curtain aside.

The yard was empty, but the howling continued, closer now, until the glass trembled faintly in its frame. The warmth I had felt in the forest stirred beneath my ribs, and I stepped away from the window, suddenly afraid that changing my name had done nothing to hide the one thing I could not understand.

Whatever had followed me to Mara's clinic, it had found me again.