THE HELLHOUND'S DARK ROSE

Smoke and Split Silver

Zoey

From the adjoining doorway, Zoey watched the two of them standing by the hearth, the tension between them so dense it felt like a thunderstorm ready to split the roof in half.

Violet was bristling like an arching cat, every muscle coiled for a fight, but Zoey had known Violet for over a decade. She saw the subtle dilation in Violet’s dual-colored eyes, the slight tremble in her fingers as she gripped the brass casing, the unconscious way she leaned into the heat rolling off the Hellhound Alpha.

The mate bond was clawing at both of them, and the sheer restraint Demon was showing—keeping his hands to himself while standing mere inches from the woman the moon had forged for him—was terrifying in its discipline.

"Violet," Zoey called out softly, breaking the suffocating silence.

Violet blinked, stepping back half a pace from Demon as if snapping out of a trance, though her breathing remained shallow and fast.

"What is it, Zo?" Violet asked, turning toward her.

"If someone was herding those wolves with a suppressed rifle," Zoey said, leaning her shoulder against the doorframe, "they had to be within five hundred yards of the river crossing. Did your perimeter sensors pick up an engine or a vehicle track on the southern access road?"

Zoey directed the question at Demon.

Demon turned his red eyes toward Zoey, his expression hardening back into the cool, calculating Alpha who commanded the entire northern ridge.

"Ryder is running the perimeter telemetry now," Demon answered. "The southern road is heavily wooded, but we have motion sensors along the culverts. If an unauthorized rig drove within a mile of the boundary fence, we’ll have the heat signature."

Before Demon could say more, the heavy radio transceiver mounted near the suite’s entrance chimed with a sharp burst of static—a half-second of white noise that, for one unsettling beat, sounded almost like slow, deliberate breathing before it resolved cleanly into Ryder’s voice.

Ryder’s voice came through, steady but alert.

”Demon. One of the motion sensors along the eastern ridge just tripped. Near the secondary culvert.”

Demon crossed the room, pressing the transceiver button on the wall. “Was it a vehicle?”

”Negative,” Ryder answered. ”No heat signature of an engine, and no radio chatter on the bands. Just a single break in the beam. I’m heading out to the gate now to check the line.”

Violet was at Demon’s side in an instant, her dual-colored eyes sharp and gleaming under the amber chandelier light.

“I’m coming with you,” she said, her tone leaving no room for argument.

Demon looked down at her, his jaw tightening as he took in the stubborn tilt of her chin and the fierce, untamed fire burning in her gaze. Every instinct in his blood screamed to keep her locked inside the fortified walls of the manor, away from the cold and the dark. He said nothing of it. He'd felt the warning in her stance long before she'd opened her mouth, and some truths a man only had to learn once.

“Put your jacket on,” Demon rumbled, his lips twitching with the faintest trace of dark approval. “Let’s see what tripped the line.”