Chapter 2

Footsteps on the stairs.

I flattened myself against the railing. Two figures passed close enough to touch—Petra first, pockets already stuffed. Behind her, a shape I'd know in any life.

Brennan Falk. Dorene's son. The one who shifted and tore my throat out three days from now.

He was bigger than I remembered. Greasy hair. A smell that arrived before he did—stale musk, sour underneath. A wolf who hadn't groomed in weeks.

They turned into my hallway. I had seconds before one of them walked into my bedroom and found an empty bed.

I crossed the room on bare feet, pulled the covers up, and shut my eyes. My heart was hammering hard enough to feel in my teeth.

From my closet, Petra's voice. Low and tight.

"Enchanted moonstone." A drawer scraped open. "One pair of these buys a rogue a new identity in three territories."

Silence. Then the acid came.

"I had my wolf at fourteen. Fourteen. And I sleep on a cot in a basement." Her voice went thin. "She can't even shift, and she's sitting on a jewelry box worth more than my whole life."

Brennan didn't answer.

Petra stepped out. I heard her loading things into her jacket.

"Don't be stupid tonight." She dropped her voice. "Mom says the girl's never been touched. You wake her up, we lose the house, the herbs, everything."

"Out."

"I mean it, Brennan. She's wolfless, not deaf."

The door clicked shut behind her.

Five seconds. Ten.

The mattress dipped.

He'd climbed into my bed.

The smell closed around me—rancid sweat and unwashed skin, thick enough to taste. He pressed his face into my hair and inhaled. Slow. The kind of slow that wasn't casual.

In my last life, the wolfsbane knocked me out cold every single night. And every night, he was in here. Doing this. I never knew.

His hand landed on my shoulder. Rough fingers, greasy skin. He dragged it down my arm.

I bit the inside of my cheek until copper filled my mouth. Under the blanket, I drove my nails into my thigh hard enough to bruise.

Don't move. Don't shake. Don't breathe wrong.

His mouth found my neck. Hot breath, wet lips. His hand kept going—down my back, curving around my waist, reaching toward—

My phone screamed.

The alarm I'd set before Dorene brought the tea. Full volume, right on the nightstand next to his ear.

Brennan shot off the bed.

Dorene was through the door in seconds. She killed the alarm and grabbed Brennan's ear hard enough to wrench his head sideways.

"Are you out of your mind?" Her whisper cut deeper than a shout. "You want Silver Ridge Enforcers tearing this house apart?"

Brennan yanked free. "She didn't wake up."

"Because I drugged her. What happens the one night she skips her tea? What then?"

"Then it's easy." He straightened up. His eyes caught the hallway light—flat and empty, the exact same look from my last life, right before his bones cracked and his wolf came through.

"She's wolfless. No pack bond. No alarm scent. Nobody watching this house." He rolled his shoulders. "I shift, I bite, ten seconds. We dump her in that chamber she's never set foot in."

He glanced back at Dorene.

"Her parents are a continent away, chasing herbs. Who's gonna come looking?"