Page 123 of A Wolfe in the Woods

My gaze lifted to the trees, to the darkening line of Juniper Woods. My father’s words echoed in my head. I was being asked to bargain away all of my father’s dreams, the legacy he left for me. Give up my past, my future with the Hollow that I was trying to slowly repair, rebuild, along with my life. For a human. One I’d fallen for. I knew what made sense logically, but it didn’t align with my heart.

“I’ll bring the girl,” he finished. “You bring your conscience. See you soon.”

“Wait,” I growled. The line went dead. Matching the silence around me.

Behind me, the cabin light glowed warm and small. May stood in the doorway, facing in my direction, already knowing.

And for the first time in my life, I understood exactly how far I was willing to go when something mattered to me more than anything.

CHAPTER 35

JONATHAN

My pulse hammered against my ribs. The forest air felt too sharp in my lungs, like every breath carried needles. Behind me, the reception cabin glowed warm and small, May’s silhouette moving near the doorway…watching me, waiting.

“He has her,” I told May. “I’m going after her.”

Blanche.

My mind kept trying to put her somewhere safe. Somewhere logical. On a couch, wrapped in a blanket, furious at me and ignoring my calls. Anywhere but in the hands of Erik Skoll—a man she worked for, a man she couldn’t seem to escape. A tug-of-war she’d never agreed to play.

You bring your conscience,he’d said. Blanche for the land, plus the money. He’d reiterated that the financial offer still stood even after his veiled threat.

As if this was about morals. As if this was a chess match and not a hunt.

I should have told him no. Should have roared it into the phone until my voice cracked. Should have threatened him with the kind of violence men like him understood.

But I’d heard his tone. It had been calm and certain. He wasn’t making an offer. He was giving me the illusion of choice.

I turned, stepping back toward the cabin for my truck keys, and that was when I heard it.

A sound like dry bones snapping. A faint crackle at first, easy to mistake for a branch shifting in the night wind. Then another. And another. Until it thickened, multiplied, and became a hungry chorus.

I stopped. The smell hit me a second later. Smoke.

Sharp and biting, already beginning to coat the back of my throat. The scent of burning pine sap and varnish. Something long built, something never meant to burn.

My stomach dropped.

I pivoted toward the cabins and saw it.

Flames licked up the side of one of the outer units—cabin eleven, the one next to mine—but it wasn’t alone. Bright orange tongues crawled over the roof, quickly consuming the structure like it was paper. The window had already blown out, glass shattered inward, more flames pulsed inside the cabin like a living thing. It was burning too quickly, at an accelerated pace.

For a split second, my mind refused it. Not tonight. Not after that call.

The heat surged as the wind shifted, and reality slammed into me hard enough to make my knees go weak.

“No,” I breathed.

My eyes stayed on the blaze. It wasn’t spreading naturally, like an accident. It was too precise in the way it moved. The fire started high, possibly fed by something thrown or poured. Whoever had caused it had wanted it to catch fast and intended it to be seen right away.

This was a message. And both it, and its sender, were clear to me. Which meant Blanche wasn’t in Graymore. She washere. In the woods.

May stepped out onto the porch, one hand still holding her tea mug like she’d carried it out without thinking. She locked onto the burning cabin and went still like a stone.

Then her head tilted, turning sharply away from the fire. Toward the dark.

“Jon,” she said slowly, her voice dropping. “Wait.”