Prologue
The glowing display on my dashboard read 10:42 PM, the numbers bleeding a soft, artificial blue into the cramped interior of my sedan.
My eyes burned, a dull ache throbbing behind my temples from eight straight hours of staring at digitized 19th-century census records and blurred marriage certificates. The pursuit of a PhD in genealogy was less about finding oneself and more about losing oneself in the dusty, bureaucratic paper trails of the dead.
I rolled down the window, letting the cool, high-desert air of the Arizona night rush in to slap the lethargy from my face. It was a crisp spring evening, the kind that held a deceptive chill once the sun dipped below the mesas.
Outside, the world was bathed in an eerie, silver brilliance. The moon was a heavy, bloated pearl in the sky—a hunter’s moon, full and unapologetic. It hung so low it felt like I could reach out and brush its cold surface. I gripped the steering wheel, my tan fingers stark against the black leather, and sighed. I just had to get Emile. One quick stop at the reservation, and then I could collapse into my bed and forget that the year 1840 ever existed.
As my tires hummed over the asphalt, I reached the cattle guard that marked the official entrance to the Navajo Reservation. I had crossed this line thousands of times since I was a toddler, trailing after my brother and Sazi. But tonight, the moment my front tires hit the metal slats, the air in the car changed.
A sudden, violent jolt of heat slammed into my chest. It wasn’t a mechanical shock; it felt internal, like a live wire had been threaded through my veins and snapped tight. My breath hitched, a gasp catching in my throat as the temperature in the cabin seemed to spike twenty degrees.
What the hell?
I slowed the car, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. My skin felt hyper-sensitive, the friction of my white tank top against my shoulders suddenly feeling like sandpaper. Through the open window, a sound drifted in from the jagged silhouettes of the distant mountains—a long, mournful howl. Then another. And another. A chorus of wolves, their voices weaving together in a song that sounded less like animals and more like a lament.
“Just nerves, Lottie,” I whispered to the empty car, my voice trembling. “Too much caffeine and not enough sleep.”
But the heat didn’t fade. It coiled in my stomach, pulsing in time with the moonlight.
As I pulled onto the long, dirt driveway leading to the Chief’s home, the familiar sight of the property usually brought me peace. I saw Sazi’s parents’ vehicles parked in their usual spots under the lean-to. But parked crookedly near the porch was a beast of a machine I didn’t recognize: a slate-grey Ford F-350, its wheel wells and side panels caked in dried, reddish mud. It looked rugged, aggressive, and entirely out of place next to the Chief’s sensible SUV.
My heart did a strange, uncomfortable flip. I knew that truck. Or rather, I knew who it belonged to.
Kai.
The oldest son. The shadow that used to linger on the edges of my childhood. He was five years older than me, which put him at almost thirty now. I hadn’t seen him in half a decade—not since he’d packed a single duffel bag and vanished to the north for work. Manual labor, the rumors said. Oil rigs or forestry. Something that required the legendary, terrifying strength he’d been known for back in high school.
I remembered the stories Emile used to whisper—about the guys from the city who had come onto the Rez looking for trouble, only to be sent back in an ambulance after Kai was finished with them. He had always been the quiet one, a mountain of a boy with a gaze that felt like it could see right through your skin. I’d had a crush on him since I was twelve, a pathetic, breathless thing that I’d buried deep under my textbooks.
I cut the engine, and the silence of the night rushed in, heavy and expectant.
I stepped out of the car, the gravel crunching under my sandals. The spring air hit my bare legs, sending a shiver through me. I was still wearing my study outfit—a denim mini-skirt and a tight white tank top. It had been eighty degrees at noon, but now, the chill bit at my skin. I rubbed my arms, my phone vibrating in my pocket.
Emile: Yo, you here? Sazi’s mom made frybread. Saving you some.
I started toward the porch, my eyes fixed on the heavy wooden door. The electric sensation from earlier hadn’t left; it had narrowed, focusing into a sharp, magnetic pull toward the house.
I reached the top step and raised my hand to knock, but the door swung open before my knuckles could graze the wood.
I froze.
I was looking at a wall of white cotton. My eyes traveled upward, past a broad, muscular chest that seemed to fill the entire doorway, up a thick neck, to a face that stopped my heart cold.
It was Kai. But it wasn’t the Kai from my memories.
His skin was a deep, weathered bronze, glowing in the spill of the porch light. His hair, dark as a raven’s wing and just as glossy, fell in straight, heavy strands past his shoulders. But it was his eyes that stole the air from my lungs. They were a piercing, impossible blue—so vivid they looked like ice lit from within. The irises were massive, bleeding into the whites until there was only a thin rim of porcelain left around a sea of crystalline sapphire.
The heat I’d felt at the border exploded. It wasn’t just in my veins anymore; it was radiating from him, an invisible wave of thermal energy that made the cold night air vanish.
“I... I’m...” I started, but my voice died.
Kai didn’t move. He stood like a statue carved from the mountain itself, towering over me. He had to be at least six-foot-five, his shoulders so wide he practically blocked the light from the hallway behind him. His white T-shirt clung to the hard ridges of his abs and the thick curves of his biceps. He was barefoot, his toes gripping the wooden floorboards as if he were rooting himself to the earth.
He didn’t speak. His nostrils flared suddenly, his chest expanding as he took a deep, dragging inhale. It was a predatory movement, like he was catching a scent. His eyes closed for a brief second, his jaw clenching so hard I heard the bone click.
When he opened them, his pupils were blown wide, swallowing the blue until his eyes were two bottomless black voids.
“I’m here for Emile,” I finally managed to stutter, my face heating up. “To pick him up.”
Kai remained silent for a heartbeat longer than was comfortable. Then, with a slow, deliberate grace, he inclined his head. He stepped back, but only barely, creating a narrow sliver of space for me to enter.
“Come in,” he rumbled.
His voice was a low, gravelly vibration that I felt in my marrow.
I swallowed hard, clutching my purse to my side. I had to pass him to get into the foyer. As I ducked my head and tried to squeeze through the gap, my bare shoulder brushed against his forearm.
The contact was like a lightning strike.
A physical spark of yellow-white heat sizzled between our skin. I let out a sharp gasp, jumping back as if I’d touched a hot stove.
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” I blurted out, my heart racing. “I didn’t mean to—I must be carrying a lot of static from the car seats—I didn’t mean to shock you.”
Kai didn’t jump. He didn’t even flinch. He just stood there, his eyes fixed on the spot where our skin had met. He inhaled sharply again, his eyes fluttering shut as he leaned imperceptibly toward me.
When his gaze met mine again, the expression there was unreadable—dark, hungry, and pained all at once. My stomach did a slow, dizzying roll, butterflies feeling more like the beat of a thousand wings.
“It’s okay,” he whispered.
The cold breeze from the open door was blowing right onto my back, but I couldn’t feel it. All I could feel was the furnace-like heat rolling off his body. I stared up at him, mesmerized by the way the blue in his eyes seemed to be fighting to reclaim the black of his pupils. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.
I realized I was staring.
I also realized I had been standing in the doorway like a deer in headlights for far too long.
“Thanks,” I muttered, my voice barely a squeak. I didn’t wait for him to respond. I ducked my head and hurried past him, scurrying toward the living room where I could hear Emile and Sazi laughing over a video game.
As I rounded the corner, I felt his gaze lingering on the back of my neck like a brand I couldn’t wash off.
