Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 1 - Chapitre 10

ELOWENThe bass pulsed through the floor like a heartbeat, vibrating up through my heels and into my bones.I stood at the edge of the stage, one hand curled around the cold brass of the pole, waiting for my cue. The lights were low in the main room — that expensive, moody darkness that made everyone look better and feel richer. Velvet booths lined the walls, occupied by men in suits who'd loosened their ties just enough to pretend they were relaxed. Champagne buckets glinted on tables. The air smelled like expensive cologne and possibility.The Gilded Lily wasn't a dive. It was the kind of club where the cover charge weeded out the riffraff and the drink prices kept them out. The girls here were professionals — dancers, athletes, performers — and we were paid like it. No sticky floors. No grabby hands without immediate consequences. Just money, music, and the mutual understanding that everyone was here to play a role.My song started. A slow, heavy beat. Something with a dark pulse t

ELOWENI hadn't slept properly in three days.Every sound woke me — the creak of the cabin settling, the wind brushing branches against the roof, the distant hoot of an owl. Sounds I'd lived with for two years, sounds that used to mean home and safe and peace. Now they meant something else. Now they meant what was that and is something out there and where's my knife.The knife was on my nightstand. The .22 was in the drawer, loaded. Both within reach. Always within reach now.I stared at the ceiling, watching the gray light of early morning creep across the beams. Monday. It was Monday, and I had work to do — the sustainable packaging article was officially overdue, my client had sent two increasingly pointed emails, and I couldn't seem to make myself care.All I could think about was the deer.It had started with the rabbit.Saturday morning, I'd found it on my porch — a small, brown thing, curled up like it was sleeping. My first thought had been oh no, my second poor thing. Animals

ELOWENThe paw print was the size of my hand.I crouched at the bottom of the porch steps, phone out, taking picture after picture like documentation would somehow make this less terrifying. The morning light was gray and flat, washing out the details, so I grabbed a measuring tape from the junk drawer and laid it next to the print.Six inches across. Maybe more.I sat back on my heels and tried to breathe.Six inches. That was bigger than a wolf. Bigger than any dog I'd ever seen. That was... what? A bear? But bears didn't have paw prints like this — I'd seen bear tracks before, up near the creek, and they looked different. Wider. More pad, less claw.This was canine. Unmistakably canine. A dog or a wolf, just... impossibly large.I took one more photo, then retreated inside and locked the door behind me.Google was not reassuring.I sat at the kitchen table, laptop open, .22 within arm's reach, and fell down a rabbit hole of wildlife identification pages. Gray wolf tracks averaged f

ELOWENI was losing my mind.That was the only explanation. Stress, sleep deprivation, too much time alone in the woods — something had snapped in my brain, and now I was having a staring contest with a wolf the size of a small horse.Except I wasn't imagining it. I had photos. I had paw prints. I had the memory of those golden eyes burning into mine through the window, the sheer presence of the thing, the way it had watched me with an intelligence that no animal should possess.And now it was lying in my yard like a very large, very terrifying dog waiting for its owner to come outside.I stood at the kitchen window, coffee in one hand, .22 in the other, and watched it watch me.Then I set down the coffee, grabbed my phone, and took a picture.The zoom wasn't great — the image came out grainy, more shadow than detail — but you could see it. The massive shape. The dark fur. And if you looked closely, two pinpricks of gold where the eyes caught the light.I sent it to Rowan without a ca

ROGUEShe hadn't locked the door.He'd heard it — or rather, hadn't heard it. The heavy click of the metal thing that kept him out, the sound that had haunted him every night since he'd found her. Tonight, it never came.She'd closed the door. But she hadn't locked it.He lay in his spot at the edge of the clearing, head on his paws, and turned this over in his mind. It meant something. Something important. She was choosing to let him close, choosing to trust that he wouldn't break through the barrier she'd left unlocked.He wouldn't. He couldn't. Not now, not when she was finally starting to see him as something other than a threat.But knowing the door was unlocked — knowing he could if he wanted to — made something warm bloom in his chest.Progress.Friday passed in a haze of contentment.She didn't leave the cabin. Didn't go to the bus stop, didn't disappear into the belly of a metal beast. She stayed home, moving through her dwelling in that easy rhythm he'd come to know so well.