Chapter One: The Return

"You've got to be kidding me."

Sera Blackwood stares at the weathered sign marking the town limits, her knuckles white against the steering wheel. Five years. Five years since she swore she'd never set foot in Crimson Hollow again, and here she is, driving straight back into the mouth of hell.

Her phone buzzes in the cup holder. She doesn't need to look to know it's another text from Maya.

Please tell me you're at least in the state. Sera, I'm dying here. Literally dying.

Sera's chest tightens. Maya doesn't know the literal meaning of the word, but the desperation in her texts over the past week has been real enough. Her little sister—well, cousin, technically, but they grew up as sisters—needs her. That's the only reason Sera's Toyota is currently crossing into werewolf territory.

The town looks the same. Quaint storefronts line Main Street, their flower boxes bursting with late-autumn blooms. Normal people walk normal dogs. A couple sits outside the coffee shop, laughing over enormous muffins.

None of them know that half the town's population shifts into wolves under the full moon.

Sera's phone rings this time. She punches the accept button.

"I'm here," she says before Maya can speak.

"Oh, thank God." Maya's voice cracks with relief. "Where are you exactly?"

"Just passed the welcome sign. I'll be at your apartment in ten minutes."

"No." The word comes out sharp. "Don't come here. Meet me at the Rusty Anchor. The bar on—"

"I know where it is, Maya." Sera's jaw clenches. "What's going on? Why can't I come to your place?"

Silence stretches for three seconds too long.

"Maya."

"Just... meet me at the bar. Please. I'll explain everything."

The line goes dead.

Sera resists the urge to throw her phone out the window. Instead, she makes a left turn that takes her toward the waterfront, where the Rusty Anchor has been serving cheap beer and cheaper food since before Sera was born.

The parking lot is half-full, which is more than she expected for a Tuesday afternoon. She locks her car and pushes through the heavy wooden door, her eyes needing a moment to adjust to the dim interior.

The smell hits her first—pine, leather, and something wild that makes her wolf stir beneath her skin. Pack scent. Silverclaw pack scent.

Her wolf whines, recognition and longing flooding through her veins.

No, Sera tells herself firmly. We are not doing this.

She spots Maya in a corner booth, her cousin's dark hair pulled into a messy bun, her face pale with stress. Sera weaves through tables of humans nursing afternoon drinks, hyper-aware of the three wolves sitting at the bar who've already clocked her presence.

She slides into the booth across from Maya. "Start talking."

Maya's eyes are red-rimmed. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know what else to do."

"Sorry for what?"

"For lying. You're not here because I need help with wedding planning."

Sera's blood runs cold. "What?"

"The pack council is forcing an alpha binding." Maya's words tumble out in a rush. "Dante has thirty days to choose a mate or they'll choose one for him. The ceremony is four weeks from tomorrow."

The world tilts sideways.

"No," Sera breathes. "He wouldn't—Maya, why would you bring me back for this?"

"Because someone's killing pack members, Sera. Three wolves dead in two months, all of them part of the old guard. All of them wolves who were there the night you left."

Ice slides down Sera's spine. "That's not possible."

"The last body was found three days ago. Jessica Hartwell. Someone ripped her throat out and left her in the woods behind the old paper mill."

Jessica. Sera remembers her—a junior pack member, sweet but ambitious. She'd been one of the wolves pushing hardest for Sera's exile.

"The council thinks it's a rogue," Maya continues. "But Sera, what if it's connected? What if someone knows why you really ran?"

"Then we're all dead," Sera says flatly. "Maya, bringing me back here is—"

The bar door swings open.

Sera doesn't need to turn around. She feels him the moment he walks in—that electric pull that's haunted her dreams for five years. The bond they never completed hums to life, stretching taut between them like a live wire.

Dante Silverclaw stops three feet from their table.

He looks different. Broader through the shoulders, his dark hair longer than she remembers. Stubble shadows his jaw. But his eyes—those storm-gray eyes that used to look at her like she was his entire world—they're cold as winter steel.

"Sera." Her name sounds like gravel in his throat.

She forces herself to meet his gaze. "Alpha."

Something flickers across his face. Pain, maybe, or anger. It's gone too quickly to tell.

"We need to talk," he says.

"I'm talking to my cousin."

"Now."

It's not a request. The alpha command rolls through the words, making Maya flinch. Sera's wolf bristles, but she's not pack anymore. She doesn't have to obey.

She leans back in the booth, crossing her arms. "I don't take orders from you, Dante. Not anymore."

His jaw tightens. "There's been another murder. We found the body twenty minutes ago."

Maya gasps. "Who?"

"Thomas Crane."

The name hits Sera like a physical blow. Thomas had been Dante's beta. His best friend. And one of only five wolves who knew the real reason Sera fled Crimson Hollow.

"Outside," Dante says, his eyes never leaving Sera's face. "Unless you want to have this conversation in front of witnesses."

Sera stands, her legs somehow steady despite the panic clawing at her chest. She follows Dante through the bar, acutely aware of every eye tracking their movement.

The afternoon sun feels too bright after the bar's darkness. Dante leads her around the side of the building, into an alley that reeks of old fish and garbage.

He rounds on her the moment they're alone.

"What the hell are you doing here?" The control in his voice is razor-thin. "I told you never to come back."

"Maya called. She said—"

"I don't care what Maya said." He steps closer, and Sera's traitorous body responds to his nearness, her skin heating despite her best efforts. "You left, Sera. You made that choice. You don't get to just show up—"

"Someone is murdering the wolves who know our secret," she interrupts. "Or did that escape your notice?"

"You think I haven't noticed?" His voice drops to something dangerous. "Four wolves dead, and every single one of them was in that clearing five years ago. Someone is tying up loose ends."

"Then you need me here. I'm a loose end too."

"Exactly." Dante's eyes flash gold—wolf rising to the surface. "Which is why you need to leave. Tonight. Get in your car and drive until you hit another state."

"No."

"That wasn't a suggestion."

"And I'm not pack," Sera shoots back. "You can't order me around anymore, Alpha. I stopped being yours the night you let them exile me."

The words land like a slap. Dante flinches, actual pain crossing his face before he locks it down.

"I was trying to save your life," he says quietly.

"By letting them drive me away? By not fighting for—"

"By keeping you breathing." His hand shoots out, gripping her wrist. The touch sends electricity racing up her arm. "They wanted you dead, Sera. The council, the old guard—they wanted your head on a spike. So yes, I let you go. I let you hate me. I let you believe I didn't fight, because if they suspected for one second how much you still meant to me, they would have hunted you down and finished it."

Sera's breath catches. Five years of anger, of hurt, of believing Dante chose his pack over her—and now he's saying he did it to protect her?

"I don't believe you," she whispers.

His grip tightens. "I don't care what you believe. I care about keeping you alive. And that means—"

A wolf's howl splits the air.

They both freeze.

The howl comes again, closer this time. It's a distress call—pack members in danger.

Dante releases her wrist, already moving toward the sound. "Stay here."

"Like hell."

He spins back. "Sera—"

"I'm still a wolf, Dante. I can help."

"You're not pack. You're not trained for—"

A scream cuts him off. Human. Female. Coming from the direction of the marina.

They run.

Sera's wolf surges forward, lending her speed. They round the corner of the harbor master's office to find a scene of chaos. Two wolves—Silverclaw pack members by their scent—have cornered a third wolf against a stack of lobster traps. But the cornered wolf is wrong. Its fur is matted, its eyes feral and yellow. Foam drips from its jaws.

"Rabid?" Sera asks, but she already knows the answer.

"Something worse." Dante shifts as he runs, his clothes tearing as gray fur erupts across his body. His alpha wolf is massive, easily twice the size of a normal wolf.

The rabid wolf launches itself at the pack members. Dante intercepts mid-air, jaws closing around the creature's throat. They hit the ground in a tangle of fur and teeth.

The other pack wolves join the fight. Sera shifts without thinking, her rust-colored wolf smaller but faster. She darts in, harrying the rabid wolf's flanks, giving Dante openings.

It's over in seconds. The rabid wolf goes limp in Dante's jaws.

But as its body hits the ground, Sera sees something that makes her blood freeze.

A symbol carved into the creature's shoulder. Three lines intersecting in a pattern she recognizes.

She shifts back to human, not caring about her nakedness. "Dante. Dante, look."

He shifts, his eyes following her pointing finger. When he sees the symbol, his entire body goes rigid.

"No," he breathes. "That's not possible."

"What is it?" one of the pack wolves asks.

Dante doesn't answer. He's staring at Sera, and in his eyes she sees the same horror she feels crawling through her gut.

Because that symbol means the murders aren't random.

Someone knows what they did five years ago.

And they're not just killing wolves.

They're sending a message.

"We need to go," Dante says, his voice hollow. "Right now. Both of us."

"Go where?"

He meets her eyes, and in them she sees the truth that's about to shatter both their worlds.

"To the place where it all started. The clearing in Blackwood Forest."

Sera's heart stops. "Why?"

"Because Thomas left me a message before he died. He said if anything happened to him, I needed to dig beneath the old oak tree."

"What's buried there?"

Dante's jaw clenches. "The proof of what really happened the night you were exiled. The evidence we've spent five years hiding."

He reaches for her hand, and this time she doesn't pull away.

"Someone's found out, Sera. And they're going to use it to destroy everything."