CHAPTER ONE: The Night Everything Changed
POV: Nora Bennett
Rain had been falling over London since late afternoon, turning the streets outside the Bennett house into a blur of headlights and wet pavement. Nora Bennett stood silently beside the narrow kitchen window, watching droplets race down the glass while she held a chipped mug between both hands. The tea inside had gone cold a long time ago, but she had not noticed. Her attention was fixed on the reflection staring back at her.
Twenty-two years old, tired eyes, damp strands of dark hair falling around her face, and a silver mark resting beneath the skin of her left wrist like a thin crescent moon. She had learned not to stare at it for too long. The mark had been there for as long as she could remember, and every time she asked Catherine about it, her stepmother gave her the same answer: it was nothing. Nora had stopped believing that word years ago. Behind her, the kitchen door opened.
“Still standing there?” Catherine Bennett’s voice was cold enough to make Nora’s shoulders tense.
Nora lowered her eyes. “I was just making tea.”
Catherine glanced at the mug in her hands and scoffed. “You have been making that tea for nearly an hour.”
“I lost track of time.”
“Of course you did.”
Catherine walked toward the counter, her heels clicking sharply against the floor. She was dressed too elegantly for the quiet house, wearing a fitted black coat despite the fact that she had nowhere to go or at least nowhere she had told Nora about.
“Go upstairs and change,” she said.
Nora turned. “Why?”
Catherine's expression hardened. “Because I told you to.”
There had been a strange tension in the house all evening. Nora had felt it from the moment she came home. Catherine had barely spoken to her, but she had watched her constantly, as though waiting for something.
“Where are we going?” Nora asked.
Catherine picked up her phone. “You are going somewhere. I am not.”
Something inside Nora tightened. “What does that mean?”
Catherine finally looked directly at her. “It means you should be grateful that someone is willing to take you.”
The words landed harder than Nora expected. “Take me where?”
Catherine did not answer. Instead, she walked toward the hallway. “Ten minutes.”
Nora remained frozen. She had spent years learning how to recognize danger in Catherine’s silence, and tonight every instinct inside her was screaming. She followed her stepmother upstairs, but instead of entering her bedroom, she stopped outside Catherine’s study. The door was slightly open. Voices came from inside. Male voices. Nora's pulse quickened. She moved closer.
“She doesn't know anything,” Catherine was saying. “She doesn't even remember her mother.”
A man answered, his voice low. “That's not what we were told.”
Nora stopped breathing. Her mother. They were talking about her mother.
Catherine lowered her voice. “Whatever she may have inherited, she has no idea how to use it.” “
"And the mark?” the man asked.
Silence followed.
Then Catherine said, “It's still there.”
Nora instinctively covered her wrist. The silver mark seemed to burn beneath her fingers.
“Then she's the one.” The man's words sent a strange chill through her. “The payment will be made once she arrives,” he continued. “No mistakes this time.”
Nora backed away from the door. Her heart was pounding so loudly she was certain they could hear it. She did not know who the men were. She did not know what they wanted from her. But she knew one thing with absolute certainty. She had to leave. Now. She rushed into her room, grabbed the small backpack she kept hidden beneath her bed, and stuffed in whatever she could reach: a sweater, her phone, a little cash, and the old photograph of her mother she had secretly kept for years. Her hands shook as she opened the window.
The rain had become heavier. “Think,” she whispered to herself. But there was nowhere to think. Catherine had always controlled where she went, who she spoke to, and what she was allowed to know about her own family. If those men were coming for her, staying in that house was no longer an option. Nora climbed through the window and dropped onto the narrow strip of wet ground behind the house. Pain shot through her ankle, but she forced herself upright and ran. She did not look back until she reached the end of the street. The house stood behind her beneath the rain, dark windows staring into the night.
For the first time in her life, Nora felt completely alone. Yet beneath the fear was something else, something she could not explain. Her wrist was burning. She pulled back her sleeve. The silver mark had begun to glow faintly. Nora stared at it in disbelief.
“What are you?” she whispered.
A sudden sound came from the alley behind her. Footsteps. She turned. Nothing. Only rain and darkness. Then she heard a voice.
“Nora.”
She froze. It sounded like her mother. Impossible. Her mother had been dead for years.
“Nora, run.” The voice came again, softer this time.
Nora stumbled backward. Her breath caught in her throat as the silver mark flashed beneath her skin. Somewhere far away, something answered with a deep, unnatural growl. Nora did not know it yet, but the life she had known was already over. The secrets her parents had died protecting had finally found her.
And somewhere in the darkness ahead, a man named Adrian Blackwood was about to become the most dangerous person she had ever met and the one person who might be able to keep her alive.
