NOTHING THERE

Alaric's POV

I couldn't get the sight of her collapsing out of my head.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it again. Her face had drained of color, her hand had clawed at her chest, and her eyes had gone wide and unseeing as she fell straight into my arms.

She had weighed almost nothing when I carried her back to her room. Her head had lolled against my shoulder, and her breath had been so shallow that I had pressed my ear to her chest twice on the stairs just to make sure her heart was still beating.

So I wasn't sleeping. I was walking the perimeter of the estate at three in the morning instead, with my boots crunching softly against the gravel path and my wolf pacing restlessly beneath my skin.

The moon was high, but the woods beyond the boundary wall seemed darker than they should have been.

This was exactly what I had been afraid of.

For ten years, I had kept her away from this place because I knew how the pack would whisper and stare, and how the politics would chew her up and spit her out.

But I hadn't been prepared for this.

I had expected the pack to hurt her feelings. I hadn't expected her body to start breaking down, to the point of fainting in the middle of a ballroom.

And if it was only the stress of being back, then what the hell had I seen in her eyes?

Right before the chandeliers had blazed and blinded the whole hall, I had looked down at her face and seen a light flash in her eyes. It hadn't looked like a reflection. It had been silver and bright, and it had come from somewhere inside her. 

At the same moment, I had felt a strange warmth pulse through her skin and straight into my hands, like a current running between us.

It was probably just a reflection of the chandeliers, I told myself for the hundredth time. Adrenaline did strange things to perception.

But my wolf didn't believe it, and neither did I.

I exhaled slowly and turned to head back toward the house, and that was when the scent hit me.

It was faint, so faint that I would have missed it if the wind hadn't shifted at exactly that moment. It didn't belong to anyone in the pack, and it didn't belong to anything that lived anywhere near our lands.

I went completely still, my hand tightening around the flashlight at my belt.

"Who's there?" I called out, my voice low and dangerous.

Only silence answered me.

I took a few slow steps toward the tree line, scanning the darkness, and then I caught it in the corner of my eye. A shadow darted between the trunks, fast and deliberate, moving the way a predator moves when it doesn't want to be followed.

My wolf snarled and surged forward, but before I could give chase, the figure melted into the deeper dark and was gone.

I cursed under my breath and scented the air again. Whatever had been there hadn't left the sour tang of fear behind. What lingered was something older and metallic, like iron and ash.

I needed to get back to the security room and check the cameras.

I turned sharply toward the house, and then I stopped dead.

Tyra was standing on her balcony.

She was wearing nothing but a thin, pale cotton nightdress that fluttered around her bare legs in the cold wind, and her hair was falling loose from a braid, glimmering silver in the moonlight. 

She was hugging herself tightly, trembling, staring out at the dark forest like she was searching for something.

For a moment, I couldn't move.

My wolf lunged so hard against my control that my vision blurred. 

Mine, it roared, and it wanted nothing more than to scale the wall, wrap her in my arms and carry her somewhere warm and safe where nothing could ever touch her again.

Then the irritation hit me just as hard. 

What the hell was she doing out here, half naked and alone, after what had just happened to her? 

Was she trying to get herself killed?

I changed direction and took the outside stairs up to her balcony two at a time. She didn't even hear me until I was right behind her.

"You shouldn't be out here," I said firmly. "Go back inside."

She whirled around, startled, then frowned at me. "Don't talk to me like I'm a child," she shot back, her voice hoarse. "Besides, I couldn't sleep."

I studied her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed like she had been crying, and her hands were shaking at her sides. 

My fingers twitched with the overwhelming need to reach out and touch her, to pull her into my chest and hold her until the trembling stopped.

I forced myself to step back instead.

"Then stop acting like one," I replied curtly. "And don't wander around alone."

She glared at me. "How exactly am I wandering?" she demanded incredulously. "I'm standing on my own balcony."

"You should be careful, Tyra," I said, my voice coming out lower and rougher than I intended. "You just had a scare."

She blinked at me, and her lips parted like she wanted to argue, but the cold wind gusted at that exact moment, and she shivered violently.

I let out a heavy sigh and shrugged out of my jacket. "You're freezing," I muttered.

Before she could protest, I stepped close and draped it over her shoulders.

It was a mistake.

Being that close to her was like standing too near a fire. Her scent wrapped around me, warm vanilla and jasmine and something uniquely her that went straight to my head. I could feel the heat of her skin through the thin cotton. 

I could see the way her nipples had pebbled against the fabric in the cold, and I had to clench my jaw and drag my eyes back up to her face before my wolf did something we would both regret.

She pulled the jacket tighter around herself, and her breath hitched softly as my scent settled over her.

I heard it, and so did my wolf. The sound went straight to my cock.

Our eyes met.

Neither of us moved. The air between us grew thick and heavy, charged with ten years of everything I had never let myself say. 

My gaze dropped to her lips before I could stop it, soft and slightly parted, and my whole body ached with how badly I wanted to taste them.

I tore my eyes away, my jaw tightening so hard it hurt.

"Go inside," I said softly. "It's not safe tonight."

Her brows drew together. "What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

I didn't answer. I couldn't, not without frightening her. Instead, I stepped past her to the railing and scanned the dark tree line one last time. 

My wolf was restless again, pressing against my control, every instinct I had screaming the same thing.

Something out there was watching her.

"I'll have guards posted near your room," I said after a long pause.

"I don't need—" she started.

"It's not up for debate, Tyra," I cut in firmly, leaving no room for argument.

Her lips parted in protest, but then she closed them again. 

She looked up at me with an expression I couldn't read, like she had heard something in my voice that I hadn't meant to let slip.

I didn't trust myself to stay a second longer.

I turned and left her standing there wrapped in my jacket, the wind tugging at her hair, and I walked down the stairs without looking back, because if I looked back, I knew I would never be able to walk away.

I had barely reached the bottom step when a soft sound snapped through the silence behind me, like a twig breaking underfoot.

I spun around just in time to see them.

A pair of eyes gleamed gold in the darkness between the trees, fixed on Tyra's balcony. They held there for a single heartbeat, and then they vanished.

Without any hesitation, I bolted in that direction.

I crossed the lawn in seconds and vaulted the boundary wall, crashing into the tree line exactly where the eyes had been. My wolf was right at the surface, ready to tear apart whatever I found.

But there was nothing.

There were no footprints in the damp soil and no broken branches. I dragged in a deep breath, searching for the iron and ash I had smelled earlier, for anything at all, but the air was completely empty. I closed my eyes and pushed my hearing as far as it would stretch, past the rustle of leaves and the creek half a mile away, listening for a heartbeat or a footstep.

I heard nothing.

It was as if no one had ever been there at all.

I stood alone in the dark for a long time, my chest heaving, my wolf whining in confusion inside my head.

Maybe I was more exhausted than I realized, and I had imagined it. Maybe it had just been a deer, or a fox, or some ordinary wild animal whose eyes had caught the moonlight.

But even as I tried to convince myself, a cold chill crawled slowly down my spine.

Even a deer leaves a scent behind. Every living thing does.

So why couldn't I smell anything at all?