Moonlit Mirage

Chapter Seven

Ragnar's safehouse sat twenty miles outside the city, tucked into a stretch of desert where the only neighbors were creosote bushes and the occasional coyote. Xena hadn't agreed to come here easily. It had taken nearly an hour of arguing in the hospital parking lot, Ragnar insisting her apartment was no longer secure, Xena insisting she wasn't about to abandon her entire life because a man she'd met yesterday told her to.

In the end, exhaustion and fear had won the argument for him.

"This is yours for as long as you need it," Ragnar said, leading her through a sprawling single story house that looked unremarkable from the outside but felt fortified in ways she couldn't quite articulate once she stepped through the door. Reinforced windows. Multiple exits. The kind of careful design that suggested its owner had survived more than one attempt on his life.

"How many people live here?" Xena asked, trailing her fingers along a hallway wall lined with framed photographs, none of them recent, none of them showing faces she recognized.

"Depends on the week. Right now, just me, Kane, and Mira."

As if summoned by his name, a man appeared from a doorway near the kitchen, broad and scarred in a way that suggested a life lived mostly in conflict. His eyes swept over Xena with open suspicion, lingering a beat too long before flicking to Ragnar.

"This is her?" Kane asked, like Xena wasn't standing close enough to hear every word.

"This is Xena," Ragnar said, an edge of warning in his voice. "Be civil."

"I'm always civil." Kane's gaze returned to Xena, sharper now. "I just don't see why we're risking pack resources protecting someone who might be more trouble than she's worth."

"Excuse me?" Xena's spine straightened, exhaustion momentarily forgotten in the face of being discussed like furniture.

"No offense intended," Kane said, in a tone that suggested he intended exactly that much offense. "But the last time this pack got tangled up chasing relics and bloodlines, we lost people. I'd like to know we're not doing that again before I commit anything else."

"Kane." Ragnar's voice dropped into something low and commanding, the kind of tone that made the air in the room feel heavier. "She's under my protection. That conversation is closed."

Kane held his gaze a moment longer, some silent negotiation passing between Alpha and what Xena assumed was his second in command, before he finally nodded once and stepped back, expression shuttered.

"Fine. Your call." He glanced at Xena one last time, something unreadable flickering behind his suspicion. "Hope you're worth it."

He disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving Xena standing in stunned silence, unsure whether to feel insulted or grateful that at least one person in this house was being honest about the risk she apparently represented.

"He'll come around," Ragnar said quietly.

"He doesn't seem like the type who comes around easily."

"He's not. But he's loyal, and once he decides you're worth protecting, he won't waver." Ragnar gestured toward a hallway branching off from the main room. "There's a guest room down there. Mira can show you where everything is. I need to make some calls."

"About Blackthorn?"

"About making sure your friend Sin has protection at that hospital, in case whoever attacked him decides to finish what they started."

The reminder sent a fresh wave of fear through her chest, and Xena nodded, watching Ragnar disappear down a different hallway, phone already pressed to his ear, voice low and urgent.

A woman emerged from what looked like a small study, dark hair streaked with gray despite a face that looked no older than forty, eyes a clear, striking green that seemed to assess Xena with far more warmth than Kane had managed.

"You must be Xena," the woman said. "I'm Mira. I handle most of the pack's healing and...," she paused, choosing her words carefully, "other matters that fall outside conventional medicine."

"Other matters like ancient relics?"

Mira's mouth curved into something almost like a smile. "Ragnar told you that much, did he? Good. Come with me. If you're going to be staying here, there are things you need to understand about what's happening inside your own body before it happens without warning."

Xena followed her into the study, where shelves lined every wall, books stacked in towers that looked decades old, alongside jars of dried herbs and objects Xena couldn't begin to identify. Mira gestured toward a worn leather chair, settling into the seat across from her with the kind of patient stillness that made Xena's nerves ease, just slightly, for the first time in two days.

"Your senses have been changing," Mira said. It wasn't a question.

"How did you know that?"

"Because it's exactly what happened to your mother, the first time I met her."

Xena's heart stopped.

"You knew my mother?"

Mira's expression turned somber, decades of guarded grief surfacing behind her green eyes.

"I knew her very well," she said quietly. "Right up until the night she disappeared with that pendant and never came back."