“While the rest of the pack was distracted, busy celebrating the equinox,” Mom goes on. “He was there, getting everythingin order. That’s why he had arrived late. And if he hadn’t been reveling in it—getting off on the suffering caused by his hand—it wouldn’t have been sitting at the forefront of his mind. It wouldn’t have been something you could have stumbled into by accident the way you did.” She takes on a harsh edge, disgust seeping through, before softening again. “You only had to look at him, that was enough for your magic to find its way in. You didn’t trust your gift yet. You were too inexperienced to know if what you’d seen was real, and that doubt drove you to come look closer. But you were too young to see the consequences waiting for you there.”
The images come again, stealing my vision and body in one sweep.
This time, they belong to me. Memories that were taken, now finally being returned.
I see Rennick leaving the equinox party early, reluctant, his patrol shift calling him away, and as my attention shifts off his retreating form, my eyes land on another without meaning to. Eyes indistinguishable from polished obsidian hold mine captive. I remember the violent drop of my heart. Their owner was never someone you wanted to draw the attention of. There’s no warning before his thoughts bleed into mine, his secret dealings tearing themselves open for me against his knowledge and spilling into my head.
The van. The bound women. The storage shed. It leaves me shaking, as cold tremors run through my nerves. Nausea curls with unease and doubt in my chest when I leave the party, my mind replaying the images of five terrified females over and over again.
I watch myself go home to an empty house, Mom called away to a sick pack member, and I try to force myself to sleep. It never comes. I turn over and over in the dark, my mindcircling the same thought until the possibility of it being real presses down hard enough to make staying still unbearable.
An hour before midnight, I finally give up on sleep and climb out of bed, pulling on my boots and a dark jacket. With a flashlight in hand, I step into the night and start the long hike toward the helicopter clearing, already knowing I won’t find peace until I see it for myself.
I want to scream at myself, even though there’s nothing I can change and these are only fragments of memories unspooling in my mind. The worst part is I’m not even surprised I did this. Even back at eighteen years old, my empath heart pushed me toward other people’s pain—hardwired on a cellular level to respond to others’ suffering.
It’s the recklessness of the whole thing that horrifies me.
I walked straight into danger, never once recognizing it for what it was. That’s because true fear was a foreign emotion to me back then. It hadn’t yet had to learn the harsh lessons that taught me that shadows have claws and teeth, your trust can be misplaced, and your safety isn’t guaranteed by those around you. Being raised in this territory, where nothing truly bad ever seemed to happen, left me ignorant to the corruption and pain I naively believed only existed outside its walls.
It never once occurred to me to believe that it was already living amongst us.
My eyes snap open as the magic loosens its hold, my breath coming easier as the world sharpens again. But the flickering beam of a flashlight at the edge of the clearing tells me we’re far from done. The memory is still unfolding, just changing shape and revealing itself differently now—in the same way I became a spectator to the younger versions of Rennick and me at the cabin.
Mom shifts beside me, stepping half a pace forward, as if some part of her still believes she can intervene, can protect thegirl I used to be from what’s coming. She can’t. All we can do now is stand back and watch the damage unfold.
Past me sweeps the flashlight beam across the building hunched beneath the trees, keeping her distance as she squints into the dark, searching for proof that the images in her head weren’t just something her wild imagination conjured up.
She’s still scanning the dark when a cry cuts through the night and gives her the answer she came searching for. It’s a muffled sound, but real all the same—one that manages to slip through layers of concrete and steel, a brush against her ears.
The memory continues to follow the same cruel path as my dreams.
I know what happens next and I’m powerless to stop it.
He doesn’t simply step into view. He’s just simplythere, his massive, shadow-filled form materializing behind past me without sound or warning. A single tendril of smoke reaches for her shoulder as he leans in close and speaks the words I already know by heart.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
As the younger version of me spins to face the voice at her ear, the shape behind her shifts with the movement. Smoke and shadow lose their hold, the outline of the wolf collapsing inward as if it can no longer be sustained.
Human features begin to take shape in its place.
Heart in my throat, clarity snaps into place. I now understand there never really was a wolf made of shadows. It was just the shape my mind gave him. A beast built to reflect the kind of man he was, because sometimes it’s easier to believe in a monster than accept a human could be capable of such cruelty.
The last of the smoke clears. A large, sinewy body now stands where the darkness was, pale skin stretched over muscle, dark hair streaked with silver at the temples andthorough his rugged beard. His face is hard and severe, his black eyes holding no emotion at all. Least of all mercy.
I register, almost absently, how little his son resembles him beyond build and hair color.
They inhabit space differently, the way they carry their power a complete contrast to each other. One carries it like heat, an unspoken promise of protection. The other wields it like a standing threat, a blade kept sharp and used without hesitation.
The truth finishes taking shape, leaving no space for denial.
The shadow wolf has been Merritt Fallamhain all along.
Chapter 40
Noa
Rennick’s father.
