“He’s not—” She stopped. How did you explain a monster to someone who’d never seen one? How did you describe a glamour so perfect that even magical senses couldn’t pierce it? “He’s not human. He’s not any species the Continental Council recognizes as existing. He wears a face, Wyatt. A mask that rewrites how people perceive him. Even I couldn’t see through it, and I can read emotions through scent. My magic slid right off him for fifteen years.”
Wyatt processed this without visible reaction. The sheriff, cataloguing data. But she could feel the predator underneath—his panther, processing threat assessment.
“There’s more.” He said it as a statement, not a question.
“My sister Clara.” Narla’s voice had gone flat, distant, the only way she could get the words out. “Two months after Niccolas died, I broke down and told her everything. She was a lawyer. She worked with the Continental Council’s enforcement division. She started building a case, making calls, trying to bring the man who killed Niccolas to justice.”
“What happened?”
“Three weeks later, her car went off a cliff in broad daylight. The investigation found nothing. No mechanical failure. No evidence of foul play.” Narla’s hands clenched in her lap. “He sent flowers to the funeral.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Wyatt stood in her living room, completely still, and Narla watched the implications register on his face. The years of investigation. The suspicion he’d harbored. Everything he’d thought he knew about her, rewritten in an instant.
“He killed your husband.” His voice was barely human. “And your sister. And you’ve been hiding from him?—”
“Since I fled to Haven Shores. I thought if I was quiet enough, careful enough, he’d forget about me. He doesn’t need me for anything. I was just… a loose end. A witness he’d decided to let live as long as I kept my mouth shut.” She laughed, brittle and broken. “But now he’s here. He knows about my parents, Wyatt. He mentioned them by name. He’s in the middle of my life, and I don’t know why.”
“The candles.” Wyatt’s focus sharpened. “He mentioned your candles.”
“He said they were interesting. That revelation magic was dangerous in the wrong hands.” Her stomach churned with remembered fear. “What if that’s why he’s here? What if my magic can somehow expose him? What if he’s trying to figure out if I’m a threat before he?—”
“Before he what?” Wyatt’s voice had gone deadly quiet.
“Before he kills me too.”
The words hung in the air between them. The truth she’d been carrying alone, finally spoken. The danger that had followed her across the country, finally acknowledged.
Wyatt moved. Three strides brought him to her, his hands cupping her face, tilting her head up to meet his gaze. His palms were warm against her cheeks. His eyes had shifted—the panther, riding close to the surface.
“Listen to me.” His voice was rough, raw, nothing like the controlled sheriff she’d known for years. “Whatever this Derren is, whatever he’s capable of—he’s not taking you. Not while I’m breathing. Do you understand?”
“You don’t know what he can do.”
“I don’t care.” His thumb swept across her cheekbone, leaving fire in its wake. “I’ve spent years watching you, suspecting you, telling myself the pull I felt was instinct I needed to control. And the whole time you were carrying this. Carrying it alone. That ends now.”
“Wyatt—”
“Whatever you need. Whatever it takes. We’re going to figure out what he is, what he wants, and how to stop him.” His forehead dropped to hers, breath warm against her lips. “You’re not alone anymore. Do you hear me? You’re not alone.”
The tears came then—hot and relentless, years of suppressed terror breaking free. And Wyatt held her, solid and steady, while she finally let herself fall apart.
In the sunroom, Ember watched with ancient approval.
The panther had passed his test.
SIXTEEN
WYATT
Wyatt’s world had reoriented around a single axis.
Protect Narla Wright.
Three days of running background checks, pulling financial records, and reaching out to contacts at the Continental Council. Three days of building a case against a monster whose true nature remained frustratingly unclear.
And all that time keeping his distance from her cottage, even though his panther howled for it.
