MIRANDA
The heavy iron bolt slides home with a sound that is final.Clunk.
Jax leaves the cabin like a storm front moving out to sea—loud, destructive, and leaving a sudden, ringing silence in his wake. He’s gone to "secure the perimeter," which in Wolf-speak likely means pissing on trees and scaring the local wildlife.
I am alone.
My ankle throbs, a dull, rhythmic ache that syncs up with the dripping of the faucet I fixed earlier.Drip. Throb. Drip. Throb.
I force myself off the mattress. Pain is just a signal. It’s the dashboard light telling you the suspension is damaged, but the car can still drive if you ignore the rattling. I hop-limp to the window, needing to verify the structural parameters of my cage.
I push the shutter open.
The humidity hits me first, a wet, suffocating palm against my face. Then the darkness. The fog has lifted slightly, revealing the swamp in grayscale.
We are high up. The cabin sits on pylons, elevated at least twelve feet above the water line to account for flooding. I look down.
The water below is black, still, and reflective like oil. Then, the surface breaks. A snout, armored and prehistoric, breaks the tension. Then another. Three massive alligators are circling the pylons, their tails drifting lazily in the current. They aren't just passing through; they’re patrolling. They know there’s meat upstairs.
"Variable assessed," I whisper, my voice tight. "Egress is impossible. Ground level is a kill zone."
I latch the shutter. The cabin is small, suffocatingly intimate. It’s one room, divided by function rather than walls. Kitchen. Hearth. Sleeping area.
My eyes land on the corner near the woodstove.
It’s not a bed. It’s a pile of furs, heavy wool blankets, and what looks like an old sleeping bag, all arranged in a circle. A nest.
I shouldn't go near it. It’s whereheprobably sleeps. It’s where the Wolf curls up when the man is done pretending to be civilized.
I limp over to it anyway.
I kneel on the good leg, reaching out to touch the fur. It’s coarse, possibly bear or wolf. I lean in, the mechanic in me needing to analyze the data, and inhale.
The scent hits the olfactory nerve and bypasses the logic center entirely.
Cedar. Woodsmoke. Rain. And underneath it all, a deep, heavy musk that smells like raw testosterone and amber.
It’s aggressive. It should make me recoil. Instead, the tension in my shoulders—the mainspring that’s been wound to the breaking point since I arrived atBelle Rêve—suddenly uncoils. My lungs expand. My brain stops whirring through escape scenarios for a microsecond.
It smells... safe.
"Stop it," I hiss, jerking back. "It’s biology. Pheromones. Chemical manipulation."
I hate it. I hate that my body recognizes safety in the scent of a predator. It’s a glitch. A wiring error.
The sound of heavy splashing outside snaps me back to reality. The stairs groan.
I scramble back to the bed, sitting down just as the lock disengages.
Jax enters. He brings the swamp in with him.
He’s covered in mud—thick, black sludge that streaks his bare chest and plasters his jeans to his thighs. He’s soaking wet, hair dripping onto his shoulders. He looks like something dredged up from the bottom of the bayou, primal and terrifying.
He wipes a muddy hand across his face, leaving a streak of dirt on his jaw. He looks furious. The air around him vibrates with a low-frequency growl that I feel in my teeth.
"They're lined up," he says, kicking the door shut and slamming the bolt home. "Ten of 'em. Standing right at the property line like statutes."
"The vampires?" I ask, clutching the blanket.
