Junie’s brow furrowed. Then her face cleared, and sly calculation crept into her expression. “The sheriff.”
“It’s not—we’re not?—”
“Narla.” Junie caught her hands, squeezed them until the trembling eased. “Whatever you and Wyatt are or aren’t, you lit up like a bonfire when you saw him at the festival. I saw you at the grocery store, and whatever’s happening between you two? It’s not nothing. If you’re going to trust anyone with this, trust him. But maybe don’t wait another decade to do it, okay?”
The afternoon sun slanted through the windows, catching dust motes and candle wax, painting the shop in amber and gold. Narla breathed in—beeswax and lavender and the faint electrical charge that was Junie’s particular magic—and made a decision she’d been avoiding for longer than she wanted to admit.
TWENTY-ONE
NARLA
The walk to the sheriff’s station took less time than normal. Narla had timed it, years ago, in those first weeks after arriving in Haven Shores when she’d catalogued every exit route, every safe space, every potential shelter from the monster she knew would eventually find her.
She’d never actually gone inside. Not since that first day, when she’d registered as a new supernatural resident, and their eyes had met across Wyatt’s desk.
The station was brick and coastal weathering, converted from an old firehouse. Deputy Rena Marsh looked up from the front desk as Narla entered, and her nostrils flared slightly—wolf, catching a scent in the air.
“Is Sheriff Gentry available?”
Rena’s gaze flickered to the glass-walled office in the back. “He’s in. Should I?—”
“I’ll see myself back.”
Narla didn’t wait for permission. Didn’t knock on the office door either. She pushed it open and stepped inside, closing it behind her, and for a long moment stood there, drinking in the sight of him.
Wyatt had risen from his desk the instant she entered. That gaze—the one she refused to analyze too closely, the one that went molten when his control slipped—swept over her, cataloguing, assessing.
“Trouble.” Not a question. He moved toward her, and her traitorous heart kicked against her ribs.
“He left me this.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out the candle. “On my doorstep. This morning.”
One of her candles. Burnt down to a nub, nothing left but a smear of wax and the ghost of intention. The note was still wrapped around it, neat handwriting that made her skin crawl.
Your flames reveal such interesting truths. I wonder what else they might show?
Wyatt took the candle and note, careful not to touch her fingers. His expression went hard as he read. A muscle jumped in his cheek.
“He knows about the mate revealing.” His voice was carefully controlled, but she heard the edge beneath it. “Exactly what your magic does now.”
“He’s interested.” Narla wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold despite the warmth of the office. “That’s worse than the threats, Wyatt. When Derren becomes interested in a target, he finds a way to use it. To twist it into a weapon.”
“Give me the rest of it.” Wyatt set the candle and note on his desk with deliberate care. “You’ve told me what he did to Niccolas. What he threatened. Now tell me what he is. The part you’ve been afraid to say even to me.”
“You can’t protect me from him.” The words came out sharper than she intended. “He killed Niccolas with a thought. Drove Clara off a cliff without ever touching the wheel. He’s survived for five centuries by eliminating anyone who threatens him, and if you?—”
She stopped. Pressed her palms flat on the desk. Forced herself to breathe.
Wyatt crossed the distance between them. His expression had gone to that flat, deadly quiet she’d come to recognize—not pity, not careful distance. Fury. Controlled, leashed, burning white-hot beneath the surface.
“If he decides you’re a threat—” she started.
“Then he’ll find out what a mistake that is.” His voice was barely human.
“You don’t understand what he is. What he can do.”
“Tell me.”
She gavehim the parts she’d held back—the Devourers’ biology, the way their glamour rewrote perception at a fundamental level, the harvested patients who had come in for Niccolas’s care and simply vanished. The dark fire that burned from the inside out, consuming magic rather than flesh. Her parents’ nursing home ward and the years of crafting protection into every gift she’d sent. He didn’t interrupt. His body went rigid with a tension that made the air feel electric.
