After we hung up, I didn’t move for a long time.
By the end of the day, I had three more emails flagged for review—two suppliers suddenly renegotiating terms, one logistics partner delaying a routine shipment without explanation. Individually, they were manageable. Together, they formed a pattern I didn’t like.
It was subtle. Strategic. Like someone was trying to squeeze me out.
It wasn’t uncommon for competitors to try to kill off another company. That was business.
This didn’t feel like business.
That night, I lay awake staring at the ceiling, replaying the week in my head. The falling numbers. The polite reassurances. Dad’s voice on the phone.
I thought about the black envelope.
About the message I’d thrown away.
Are you ready to play?
I rolled onto my side and told myself not to be ridiculous.
Businesses didn’t get haunted.
Markets didn’t stalk you.
But as sleep finally crept in, one thought refused to let go:
This didn’t feel like chance.
Chapter 9
Blaidd
This run wasn’t Fenrir’s usual route.
We normally kept to the countryside—open fields, woodland, places where the earth could absorb us. Tonight, he angled toward the city.
I felt it immediately.
Since it was his time, I didn’t interfere. I never did. But as we tore through back alleys, vaulted low fences, cut across manicured gardens and darkened lanes, I knew exactly where we were headed.
He was following her scent.
What are you doing?I hissed, pressing against him, trying to slow the drive coiling through our muscles.
Fenrir ignored me. He cleared another fence with brutal ease, landing hard enough to rattle the ground beneath us.
In another few weeks, we’ll have her on her knees.
He skidded to a halt, claws biting into soil as he lifted his head and inhaled.
Vetiver. Jasmine.
Then the deeper notes bled through—herbs, resin, something warm and alive beneath it all. Not perfume. Something woven into her skin.
Fenrir growled, low and vibrating through our chest. I felt the tension in him then—the anger he’d kept leashed all week tightening like a wire pulled too far.
Too slow, he snarled, surging forward again.She needs to be taken care of. I won’t be trapped or beaten again.
There it was.
