"We also have you." His thumb traces my claiming mark, and possessive satisfaction radiates through the bond. "The watcher's heir. Finn was right—your bloodline runs deep. There's more to you than even you know yet."
"Magic?" I try to keep my voice light, but the possibility sends a thrill of fear and excitement through me. "I'm becoming a shifter. That seems like enough supernatural weirdness for one week."
"The transformation will unlock what was dormant." I replay Finn's words, considering. "My aunt had abilities. It makes sense that I might too."
"We'll figure it out together." Declan presses a kiss to my forehead. "But right now, you need to eat. And then we need to go through your aunt's papers. Look for anything that might point us toward the summoner."
My stomach chooses that moment to growl loudly, making us both laugh. "Food first, then investigation. Very romantic."
"Romance can wait until we've stopped an apocalypse." Declan's tone is dry, but his love wraps around me through the bond, warming me more than any words could.
We leave the study hand in hand, but my mind is already racing ahead. Four families. Four potential victims. One summoner with the knowledge and power to end the world.
And me—former journalist, new shifter, claimed mate, watcher's heir. Whatever that all means.
I glance back at the map one more time before we leave, at the seven convergence points that form a perfect circle around the island. But as we leave the study, one thought lingers, cold and heavy in my chest. Whoever's performing this ritual has been planning this for a very long time. Longer than the six months since the first murder. Maybe years. Maybe decades.
And that means they're patient, careful, and absolutely committed to seeing this through. We're not just hunting a murderer. We're hunting a true believer.
CHAPTER 10
DECLAN
The summons comes at dawn. Tessa knocks on the bedroom door softly and delivers it to me. Before I can reprimand her, she explains, extending a slip of paper to me. “It’s not a request. Not a suggestion.”
“Then what,” I whisper.
“A formal challenge to meet at the standing stones within the hour,”
I take the paper and glance at it. The damn thing is signed by Graeme Northshore, alpha of the Northshore pack. The wax seal is red—the color of blood and war—and the paper reeks of twenty different wolves, all of them agitated.
"Fuck." I crumple the letter in my fist. Beside me in bed, Eliza stirs, her warmth a stark contrast to the cold dread settling in my gut.
"What is it?" Her voice is sleep-rough, and concern pulses along our bond before she's even fully awake.
"Graeme Northshore." I toss the wadded paper onto the nightstand. "Alpha of the Northshore pack. He's calling a gathering. All three pack alphas. Which means he's making this formal. Making it about more than just you and me."
She sits up, the sheet pooling around her waist, and I force myself to look away from the claiming mark on her throat. Now is not the time to get distracted by how thoroughly she's mine.
"What does he want?"
"To challenge my authority." I'm already out of bed, pulling on jeans and a shirt. "To question my judgment. To make sure everyone knows that taking a human mate makes me weak."
"Does it?" Her question is quiet, but I hear the fear underneath. "Make you weak?"
I cross back to the bed, cup her face in my hands. "You make me stronger than I've ever been. But convincing them of that? That's going to take more than words."
Forty wolves fill the space between the standing stones when we arrive—maybe more. Young and old, male and female, their eyes track my approach with varying degrees of hostility, curiosity, or calculation. The air reeks of tension and barely controlled aggression. This isn't just a gathering. It's a powder keg waiting for a spark.
Jax falls into step behind us, Tessa flanking our left. Finn materializes from the morning mist on our right. A show of unity, even if Jax's tension bleeds through the pack bonds. He warned me this would happen. That claiming a human would fracture everything we've built.
He wasn't wrong.
Graeme Northshore stands at the center, his pack arrayed behind him like soldiers. He's built like a battering ram—broad-shouldered, thick-necked, with dark hair and eyes the color of winter ice. Twenty-three years old, hereditary alpha, but he’s already held his territory through two challenges and oneattempted coup. He doesn't suffer weakness, and he doesn't forgive mistakes.
"MacRae." The word carries across the circle like a whip crack. "You received my summons."
"I did." I keep my tone level, alpha to alpha. "Though I'm curious why you felt the need for such formality. If you had concerns, you could have come to me directly."
