“We overlooked one detail that we never considered. The Order isn’t gone.”
The words landed with the weight of a thousand years of history. An entire kingdom built on the assumption that the hunters who’d burned our kind alive had died out with the age that created them.
“But if they’re not,” Solomon continued, “everything we couldn’t explain has an answer.”
He looked at me. “The drug in Mira’s tea didn’t erase everything. It erased us. Only the memories connected to her mates. It has an understanding of the bond, knows how to sever it.”
Percy pushed off the window. “The trap in the woods.”
“Not a poacher’s trap. A hunter’s device.”
“They have suspected a lycan in this town,” I said. “They wanted to confirm it.”
“And the dart.” Solomon’s gaze moved to Percy. “Designed for us. Our biology. Our weaknesses. Built by people who’ve been studying how to kill lycans for centuries and never stopped.”
The pieces locked together and the picture they formed made my chest tighten.
“Her father is a hunter,” Solomon said. “He knew where she was. He knew about us. And he definitely fed all of it to the organization.”
“He’s not here to reconnect,” I said.
“He’s here because he knows that she is our mate.” Solomon closed the folder.
Percival finally spoke. “This can’t be happening.”
Solomon’s pale eyes held mine. “Right now, Mira believes her father loves her.”
The sentence landed in the room and none of us moved.
“He’s planning something bad,” Solomon said.
The study was quiet.
Mira’s heartbeat pulsed softly through the bond, asleep, trusting, unaware of everything that was happening.
Percival asked. “What do we do?”
I stared at the folder. At the symbol Solomon had sketched in the margin of his notes, the crescent moon bisected by a blade. The same symbol inked into the skin of the man that is my mate’s father.
For the first time, I didn’t have an order to give.
Mira Maxwell.
She was a hunter’s daughter.
And that changed everything.
30
— • —
Mira
Three days.
For three days, my father has been taking me to lunch in town, showing me photographs of a mother I barely remembered. Three days of filling a hole that had been open since I was six years old.
Three days of my mates being too busy to join us.
