"Your aunt's death wasn't natural," he says bluntly. "We suspected it before. Now we're certain."
The words hit me like a physical blow. "What?"
"The official report said heart attack," Callum adds, his voice gentle but firm. "But the timing, the location, the circumstances—they all point to something else."
"Murder." Jax says what the others are skirting around. "Your aunt was murdered, Eliza. And it was part of something bigger."
The world tilts. My aunt. Murdered. The notebook slips from my fingers, forgotten. "Who? Why?"
"We don't know who yet," Brennan says. "But we know why. Or we think we do."
Torin kneels, traces something in the dirt at the center of the circle. A symbol I don't recognize—ancient, complex, reeking of power even to my human senses.
"This is a summoning mark," he explains. "Old magic. The kind that requires sacrifice—specific bloodlines, spilled at specific locations."
The implications crash over me. "You think my aunt was killed as part of a ritual?"
"We think she was killed at a sacred site," Torin corrects. "The area around Clifftop House sits on a convergence point—a place where the barriers between worlds are thin. Her blood, spilled there, would have power. Especially given her role as watcher. She existed between worlds. That makes her blood particularly potent for opening doors that should stay closed."
I'm shaking now, grief and rage warring inside me. "What doors? What's being summoned?"
Torin’s expression goes dark. Haunted. When he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper.
"Something my grandfather died to keep from the world. Something that should never wake."
No one speaks. Even the wind holds its breath.
"What is it?" I press, needing answers, needing to understand why my aunt died. "What's down there?"
"We don't know exactly," Brennan admits. "The records are fragmentary. Your aunt had pieces, Torin's grandfather had pieces, and there are others scattered throughout the old families. But what we do know is that forty years ago, an ancient force tried to break through. The old packs banded together to stop it. The cost was..." He trails off, looking at Torin.
"Devastating," Torin finishes. "My grandfather performed a sealing ritual. It required his life, and the lives of six other elders. They bound whatever was trying to emerge back into the deep places, locked it away with blood and sacrifice and oaths meant to hold for centuries."
"But the seals are breaking," Declan says. "We've been tracking the signs for months. The whales behaving strangely. The tides running wrong. Old magic stirring in places it shouldn't."
"And now someone's actively working to accelerate it," Jax adds. "The murders—because we think there have been others, not just your aunt—are feeding power into the summoning. Every death at a sacred site weakens that seal."
I force myself to think past the grief, to engage my investigative training, to find patterns in chaos. "How many deaths? How many sites?"
"We know of three for certain," says Callum. "Your aunt was the most recent. Before that, a fisherman named Duncan Ross, found dead on the rocks near the western cove. And before that, a woman named Emma MacLeod, drowned in the tidal pools by Selkie’s Cove."
"All within the last six months," Brennan adds. "All ruled natural causes or accidents. All at locations we've identified as convergence points."
"How many convergence points are there total?" My pen is moving again, taking notes, creating the framework for an investigation even though I know I can never publish it.
"Seven that we know of," Torin says. "Three have been used. Four remain."
Four more people need to die before this thing breaks free. "So we have months? Weeks?"
"We don't know the timeline. Could be months. Could be weeks." Torin’s eyes meet mine. "Could be days, depending on how desperate the summoner becomes."
"And my presence here?" I ask, though I'm afraid of the answer. "How does that factor in?"
The men exchange looks. Declan answers.
"You're Maureen's heir. You inherited Clifftop House, which sits on one of the most powerful convergence points in the region. You carry her bloodline. And...” He stops, jaw clenched.
"And the mate bond ties you to the pack now," Eamon finishes gently. "Which means you're caught between worlds just like she was. Watcher potential, we call it. Some humans have it, most don't. Your aunt did. And we think you do too."
