Chapter 1 – Blood on the Asphalt
The boy is already half-wolf by the time we drag him into the van.
Jax has him under the shoulders, I’ve got his legs. He’s all dead weight and hot, slick blood, the kind that makes my wolf shove against my ribs, whining to bite whoever did this.
“Careful with his head,” I snap, even though Jax is being careful. “You drop him, you get to mop brains off my floor.”
“My floor,” Jax grunts, hauling the kid over the lip of the van. “You just stole the keys.”
The interior reeks of antiseptic, metal, and old coffee. I kick the doors shut with my heel and the night highway disappears. The world shrinks to the trembling body on the stretcher and the burned grooves scorched into his chest.
Not claw marks. Not bullets.
Circles. Lines. Sigils.
My hands stutter for half a heartbeat before muscle memory takes over. Gloves. Gauze. Saline. Pull the shredded shirt away. The burns are black at the center, spider‑veining out under his skin like someone tried to carve a spell into his sternum then set it on fire.
My stomach twists.
Jax sees my face as he climbs into the driver’s seat. “That bad?”
“Shut up and drive.”
He swears softly, turns the key. The van lurches back onto the highway, engine growling. Neon from the motel we just left smears across the rear windows and vanishes in the dark.
The boy jerks, a strangled sound rattling in his throat. His eyes flicker gold under half‑closed lids.
“Hey, hey. Stay with me.” I lean over him, fingers pressing against the side of his neck. Pulse—too fast, too weak. “Shift back, kid. You bleed out slower that way.”
He claws at the air, catching my wrist instead. His hand is hot as a brand. When his fingertips brush my skin, something sharp and oily skitters along my own magic, the way it did once before—
No. I slam that door shut in my head.
“Don’t,” I murmur, more to myself than to him. “You’re not dragging me into your circle, understood?”
He doesn’t hear. His lips move, cracked and dry.
“Varyn,” he breathes.
Every muscle in my body goes rigid.
For a moment I can’t hear the rattle of the van, or Jax swearing at a slow truck in the next lane. Just that name, echoing in my skull.
Varyn.
I tape fresh gauze over the worst of the burns, forcing my hands to stay steady.
“You picked that up on TV?” I ask, voice flat, clinical. “From a podcast? Some bullshit conspiracy channel?”
His eyes roll, unfocused, but he’s fighting to surface. There’s a circle branded into the center of his chest, half‑burned, half‑healed wrong. I trace the outer edge without touching it. Five points. Binding anchors. Not pack craft. Not anything legal.
“Where did you get this?” I demand. “Who did this to you?”
The van hits a pothole. He gasps in pain, fingers crushing my wrist.
“Binding… circle,” he whispers. “Promised—power. Said… it’s what the Alphas do now.”
Of course they did.
My wolf shows me a flash: polished floors, glass walls, candles in a perfect ring. My own skin prickling with stolen magic while someone else made choices for my life and called it duty.
I shove the memory down so hard my teeth ache.
“Names,” I say. “Give me one, and I’ll keep you breathing long enough to regret it.”
His breath rattles. He swallows.
“Lark… haven,” he gets out. “Security… program. Moon… trace…”
He tries for another word and chokes on it. His back arches, the burned lines on his chest flaring dull red. For a second, it feels like the air inside the van thickens, pressing against my eardrums, the way it does inside a ritual circle when power is about to snap.
“Jax!” I bark. “Faster.”
“You want fast or alive?” he throws back. “Gauge is kissing empty.”
“Both. Figure it out.”
I pour magic into my palms, careful and thin. Not enough to flare, just enough to cool the edges of the burns, to give his own wolf something to hold on to. My power slides over the sigils and recoils like I touched acid.
Forbidden work. Industrial. Someone took the old, outlawed bonds and filed off the warnings.
The boy’s grip tightens. His eyes fly open, pupils blown wide, and for one heartbeat he’s really looking at me.
“They’re doing it again,” he rasps. “On the coast. In Larkhaven. Varyn… doesn’t know…”
He coughs, a wet, tearing sound. Blood flecks his lips.
My heart misfires at the same time something yawns open in my chest, a hollow ache with a familiar name.
“Lucky for him I don’t care what he knows,” I lie, forcing my voice to stay cool while my magic shakes under my skin. “You just worry about breathing.”
His hand slips from my wrist. I catch it, press it back against the stretcher rail, anchoring him to the here and now.
Lights flash briefly at the rear window—blue, distant. Police? Or just some i***t with high beams. I don’t look away from the kid.
“Jax,” I say, and my voice is very calm now. “Call ahead. Tell Rose’s people we’re coming in hot with a ritual burn, possible binding. They try to say no, you tell them they can explain to me in person.”
Jax mutters something unflattering in the front, already dialing.
The boy’s eyes slide shut again, but his lips keep moving, soundless this time. I don’t need to hear the words to know the shape of them.
Varyn. Binding. Larkhaven.
My past, stitched into a stranger’s skin.
I lean closer, letting my wolf’s growl ride under my words.
“Whoever sold you that circle,” I whisper, more a promise to myself than to him, “I’ll find them. And I’ll make sure they never sell anything again.”
He doesn’t answer. His breathing evens out into the shallow rhythm of someone caught between pain and oblivion.
The burns on his chest glow faintly with their own sick light.
Outside, the highway curves east, toward the coast I swore I’d never see again.
