Every single piece clicked into place.
“Are you sure you’re not putting me under a hypnosis or a curse?”
“We’re not witches,” Percy said.
“Do I need to grab garlic?”
“Not vampires either.”
My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against my thighs and forced the next sentence through my teeth. “Please tell me you’re not werewolves, or I’m going to hit my head with a hammer for reading too many romance books in my shop.”
Silence. The kind that filled the room until the walls felt closer.
“We’re not werewolves,” Lucian said.
My lungs loosened a fraction. Just enough to let in one thin breath of...
“We’re lycans. It’s different.”
My jaw dropped.
Suddenly, my brain powered down. The little hourglass cursor spinning in the void while every neuron I owned went on strike simultaneously.
I laughed. “Okay, joke’s over, boys. Let’s be serious.”
I looked between them, waiting for the punchline. Percy’s face held no trace of humor. His jaw set in a hard line. No dimples or grin. Lucian clenched his teeth so tight a muscle jumped beneath the skin.
“It’s not a joke, Mira,” Solomon said.
The laughter died in my throat.
I breathed. Three counts in, three out. Let the word carve itself into my understanding.
Lycans.
“Okay.” I stood. My legs wobbled but they held. “That’s it. I need to process this.” My hand pressed against my forehead, fingers digging into my scalp. “I need space. Maybe I should go stay somewhere else for a while. I have to wrap my mind around...”
Lucian rose in one motion. “You can’t leave.”
I turned on him with a glare. “I don’t think I want you deciding for me.”
“You’re not safe.”
Before I could fire back, he reached into his back pocket, pulled out a photograph, and set it on the coffee table between us.
My photograph. Taken through the firehouse window while I held a casserole dish and laughed, completely oblivious. I picked it up with numb fingers and turned it over.
Two words in red ink that made my blood run cold.
“I’m watching.”
The photograph trembled in my fingers.
Solomon moved toward me. Close but not crowding. “Hudson is waiting for you. He still hasn’t given up.”
The cabin fell away. The lycans, the golden eyes, all of it dissolved. For one terrible second I stood in that inn room again, hearing his footsteps outside the door, hearing him call my name in the voice that promised pain.
I was reminded why my shop burned. Why I am standing in this cabin and why these three men existed in my life at all.
