Prologue
The fan above Elara spun in lazy, groaning circles, its rhythmic creak almost hypnotic, if not for the stench of blood clinging to her skin.
Inside, the only other sound was a leaky tap in the bathroom.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Like a countdown, she couldn’t stop.
Like her memories, endless, sharp, and cruel.
Elara lay motionless on the thin motel bed, her back sticking to the worn sheets, sweat trailing along the curve of her spine. Summer heat pressed down on her like punishment. But it was the fire beneath her skin that made her flinch. Claw marks down her arm were still raw, the wolfsbane embedded deep, slowing her healing to a crawl.
Her wolf had gone silent three days ago.
A punishment or a trauma response, she couldn’t tell which.
A week had passed since her world was reduced to ashes.
Literal ashes.
Seven days since she ran bleeding, broken, breathless from the home she’d grown to love.
From the charred ruins of her pack, from the smell of burning fur and torn flesh.
From the sound of children screaming, women crying and the cold thud of her mate’s severed head hitting the earth.
She hadn’t shed a single tear.
The images flickered behind her eyes with cruel clarity.
Her father-in-law’s proud gaze during their initiation.
The collective howls of her pack during their mating ceremony.
Her best friend and her dancing all night during their monthly movie nights.
The laughter of her pack at their annual games nights.
The warmth of her mate’s breath on her neck as he whispered, “We’ll always find each other.”
Now? There was only silence.
All of it. A simple memory. Only she would now carry.
No tears. No wolf. No pack. No home.
Just blood. Just silence. Just her.
Her senses flared suddenly, slicing through the fog of memory.
A feeling, a knowing.
Trouble.
A scent, faint but unmistakable, slithered under the motel door. Her pulse spiked. She knew that smell. The stench of the bastards who’d destroyed her world. A scent that had ingrained into her brain. A smell she could now identify without trying.
Rogues.
She was trained now to sense them, to identify them, to feel them, to outrun them.
A cynical voice floated in through the thin wall: “I can smell her here.”
Another laughed, delighted. “Finally, mate... I’ve found you.”
Her blood froze. The voice of the man who single-handedly killed the love of her life, and destroyed her home, her safety. Her stomach burned with bile at the excitement in his voice.
She didn’t need to see them to know. They were close. Too close.
Her hand trembled. But this wasn’t new. This was routine now run, hide, erase every trace.
She moved silently, every muscle screaming. She sprayed the room with the sickly-sweet rose room spray, then drenched herself in it. She gagged at the pungent sweet smell as it enveloped her being and her room. It masked her scent. That was all that mattered.
“Her scent’s gone,” a voice snarled outside.
Good.
She moved. Quiet as fog. Through the bathroom, to the small window above the rust-stained sink. She’d memorised the escape route when she arrived. Only hours in, and she was found this time. They were getting quicker, and she was getting tired.
Behind the motel was a chain-link fence and beyond that, a communal pool.
She slipped out the window, her wounded arm brushing against the frame, sending a wave of pain through her side. No sound escaped her lips. She scaled the fence, barefoot and bleeding, until she landed in the gravel beyond.
In the driveway of the neighbouring house, a car sat with its boot open, groceries half-unpacked. She sniffed the air, cigarettes, aftershave, human musk. Imperfectly human. Perfect for her.
Inside, she could hear them: a couple laughing, murmuring sweet nothings as they put away their shopping. The sound twisted like a knife in her chest. Love. Home. Safety. All things she once had. All things stolen.
Another pang gripped her heart, sharp, merciless. She clenched her jaw and moved. No time to bleed. No time to break. Survival first. For all those lost. She needed to survive.
Quietly closing the boot, she slid into the car. The voices were getting closer now. She could hear them laughing, excited, searching. She found the keys in the ignition, a miracle.
The engine rumbled to life, the sharp tang of cigarettes filling her nose, another perfect mask.
An old baseball hat lay on the passenger seat. She grabbed it, shoved it over her tangled hair, and started the engine.
She didn’t look back.
As the car rolled forward, her eyes caught movement in the rearview mirror, shadows on the road, shifting like smoke, then forming into men. Wrong men. Inhuman. Their gaze turned toward the motel. The room she had stayed in. She watched as they kicked that room open.
They hadn’t seen her.
Not yet.
Her heart pounded. Her throat burned. But she kept driving. Past the town. Past the pain. Toward the only place left, her birth home.
She didn’t know why she had survived when no one else had. But she was alive. And she wasn’t going down without a fight.
Not today.
