The country of wolves
The plane dipped beneath a thick quilt of clouds, revealing a country that looked carved from winter. Slate rooftops. Pines like black spears. A river that cut through the land like a silver blade.
Ravenbridge.
My new home.
I pressed my forehead to the cold window, watching the world rush up to meet me—everything unfamiliar, everything wrong. Three weeks ago I’d been finishing my final year of school, arguing with my mom about curfews and my dad about college applications.
Three weeks ago I had parents.
Now I had a suitcase, a passport, and an uncle I barely remembered.
The moment I stepped off the plane, the air assaulted me—sharp, metallic, colder than anything I’d known. A man in a dark coat stood waiting, a sign in his gloved hand: LANA WARD.
He didn’t smile. “Your uncle is expecting you.”
Of course he was. The great and mysterious Victor Ward, whom my mother never spoke about. The brother she once called “a friend to wolves.”
The car ride to his estate took an hour. Silent forests pressed against the windows like watchers. When we finally arrived, the mansion rose from the darkness—stone walls, spires, wrought-iron gates twisting like thorns.
Inside, Uncle Victor greeted me with a stiff embrace and a look I couldn’t decipher.
“You’ve grown,” he said, as if surprised I was a person and not a memory.
Dinner was awkwardly formal. The house felt too large, the shadows too thick. I excused myself early, claiming exhaustion, and wandered the halls.
That’s when I saw her.
A girl my age—or maybe a little older—standing at the far end of the corridor, illuminated by moonlight. Her posture was regal, her hair a waterfall of ink, her eyes the color of smoke after a fire. She wore an expression that could wound or worship.
She looked at me as if she already knew me.
As if she had been waiting.
“You must be Lana,” she said, voice soft but edged. “I’m Seraphine Vale.”
The name hit me like a chill. Everyone knew of the Vale family—old money, ruthlessly powerful, practically royalty in Ravenbridge. But what was their heiress doing in my uncle’s house?
Before I could speak, she stepped closer, her gaze pinning me in place.
“Welcome to Ravenbridge,” she murmured. “Be careful who you trust here.”
Then she smiled—a beautiful, devastating thing.
“And be especially careful with me.”
