Layla exhaled, brushing her hands free of dust.
Most of the texts had been found slowly over the years. A traveler hiking the mountains, a parcel slipped through sympathetic hands, one or two covertly bought in the old market in Juneau when she’d been desperate enough to risk it.
Each had cost her more than she liked to admit.
Her gaze moved to the wall, where pages of notes were pinned with rough string; diagrams, runes, fragments of translation. A lifetime of trying to solve a puzzle that refused to yield. Sure, she had matured. Her magic had grown stronger within her. She could command ten-foot fires now, turn a barren garden to full bloom, lift hundred-pound weights with her mind.
Not that she ever did any of those things. That would be far too conspicuous.
The one big spell she did allow herself to practise, the one bit of magic she did risk her life indulging, was this one.
Her wolf.
She had never shifted.
Both her parents were shifters. Her grandparents, too. Whatever witchcraft existed in her blood was generations away.
She was a shifter. Shewasa shifter.
The answer had to be here, somewhere in the mess of grimoires and notes and research. She was twenty-four, and no closer to shifting than when she’d been sixteen, casting spells in the darkness of her childhood bedroom, her brother the literal wolf at the door.
She pushed away all thoughts of Julian Rook as she settled herself before her altar. If he had known what she was, what she was doing…
Well. She would most likely be dead by now.
And as long as she had breath in her lungs, she would never stop trying. Never give up.
Her wolf was inside her. She just had to find it.
Chapter 3 - Dominic
Dominic Volkhov stood over the main table of the war room, palms braced against the spread of maps. The northern territories lay inked beneath his hands, red circles everywhere the hybrid raids had been reported.
Behind him, the heavy door opened without a knock.
Julian Rook slipped inside, soundless as ever.
Dominic didn’t look up at first. “Update?”
Julian came to stand opposite him. “I’ve found something.”
“Go on.”
“Another potential hybrid site. North ridge. An abandoned settlement on the Volnoye border, an old mining village called Voskresen.” Julian unfolded a smaller map and marked the spot with a tap of his finger. “Recent tracks. Fire remains. Not enough to call it a base, but it’s something.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “How did you hear of it?”
Julian hesitated, only briefly. “A local source.”
“Who?”
“A bookseller.”
That got Dominic’s attention. His expression sharpened. “Where?”
Julian watched him carefully. “Town bookshop. She manages the archives. Knew old texts about hybrids, old Russian legends. Turns out there’s some truth to them.”
Dominic’s voice dropped. “Her name.”
