Chapter 7
1019 Words
The predawn darkness pressed against the windows of Lex's penthouse office as he spread twenty-year-old police reports across his mahogany desk. The forensics file felt heavier than it should, each page a weight against his chest. Marcus had delivered the impossible—Emma's scent, preserved on fabric fibers from the night his parents died.
His wolf paced restlessly beneath his skin, rejecting every logical conclusion. Mate, it insisted, a constant rumble of need and protection. Claim. Protect. Mine.
But the evidence couldn't lie.
Lex's fingers traced the crime scene photographs, his enhanced vision picking out details human investigators had missed. Claw marks on the cabin walls. Torn earth where multiple wolves had fought. The metallic tang of blood still seemed to cling to the images after all these years.
His phone buzzed. A text from his private investigator: Birth records for Emma Rosewood start at age 3 months. Nothing before. Adoption sealed by court order.
Three months. The same age as the Rosewood Pack m******e.
The wolf inside him snarled, refusing to accept what his rational mind was piecing together. Emma couldn't be connected to his parents' murder. The mate bond was sacred, unbreakable. The moon goddess wouldn't pair him with someone who—
His phone rang, cutting through his spiraling thoughts.
"Steele."
"Alpha." Marcus's voice was tense. "We've got movement on the peninsula. Three vehicles, no plates, heading toward the burial grounds."
Lex was already reaching for his jacket. "How long ago?"
"Twenty minutes. They're using the old logging roads to avoid the main gates."
"Mobilize the pack. I want eyes on those sites now."
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Emma's laptop screen cast a blue glow across her hotel room as she scrolled through environmental impact data that made less sense the deeper she dug. The wind farm project should have required extensive soil surveys, water table analysis, geological assessments. Instead, she found surface-level reports that barely scratched the topsoil.
Someone was hiding something.
She pulled up satellite imagery of the proposed development site, zooming in on the areas marked for turbine placement. The land formations were wrong—too regular, too purposeful. These weren't natural ridges and valleys. They looked almost like...
Emma's breath caught. Burial mounds.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, cross-referencing historical surveys with current topographical maps. The pattern became clearer with each layer she added. The entire wind farm was designed around a series of ancient earthworks, carefully avoiding the largest formations while positioning turbines in a protective perimeter.
This wasn't about renewable energy. Someone was using the project as cover to secure and monitor the site.
But who? And why?
A soft scraping sound from the hallway made her freeze. The hotel was old, full of settling noises, but this was different. Deliberate. She minimized her browser windows and crept toward the door, pressing her ear against the wood.
Footsteps. Multiple sets, moving with predatory silence.
Emma's heart hammered as she backed away from the door. Her body felt electric, every nerve ending alive with an awareness she'd never experienced. The air itself seemed to carry information—scents, sounds, vibrations that painted a picture of danger closing in.
Three of them. Armed. Moving to surround the building.
How did she know that?
Her phone was in her hand without conscious thought, Lex's number already dialing. It went straight to voicemail. She tried Marcus next. Same result.
The footsteps stopped outside her door.
Emma grabbed her laptop and research files, shoving them into her bag with trembling hands. The room's single window faced the alley behind the hotel—a fifteen-foot drop to concrete. Under normal circumstances, she'd break every bone in her body.
But nothing about her circumstances felt normal anymore.
The door handle turned slowly, testing the lock.
Emma didn't think. She moved with fluid precision that belonged to someone else's body, someone else's instincts. The window slid open silently. She swung her leg over the sill, balancing on the narrow ledge as voices murmured in the hallway.
"She's not answering. Break it down."
The wood splintered behind her as Emma jumped.
She landed in a crouch that absorbed the impact like she'd been doing it her entire life. Her legs coiled and released, propelling her across the alley faster than humanly possible. Behind her, shouts erupted from the hotel window.
"She's running! South alley!"
Emma's vision sharpened, picking out details in the darkness that should have been invisible. Every shadow became a hiding place, every sound a source of information. She could smell her pursuers now—leather, gun oil, and something else. Something wild and dangerous that made her newly awakened instincts scream warnings.
She ducked into a narrow passage between buildings, her enhanced hearing tracking their movements. They were splitting up, trying to cut off her escape routes. But they didn't know the city like she did, didn't understand the maze of Seattle's older neighborhoods.
Or so she thought.
One of them was waiting when she emerged onto Pine Street, his smile revealing teeth that gleamed too sharp in the streetlight. "Hello, Emma. We've been looking for you for a very long time."
She spun to run and found her path blocked by another figure, this one wearing a face she almost recognized from dreams she couldn't quite remember.
"Twenty years," the woman said, her voice carrying an accent Emma couldn't place. "Twenty years we've waited for you to wake up."
Emma's body coiled for another impossible leap, power flooding her muscles like liquid fire. But before she could move, a familiar scent cut through her panic.
Lex.
A low growl rumbled from the darkness behind her attackers, promising violence. The two figures tensed, their casual confidence evaporating.
"Another time," the woman said, backing toward a waiting vehicle. "But not much longer. The blood moon rises soon, and then..."
They vanished into the night, leaving Emma alone with questions that multiplied like shadows.
She turned toward the source of that protective growl, but the alley was empty. Only the lingering scent of pine and storm clouds remained, and the unshakeable feeling that eyes were still watching from the darkness above.
- Writer
