The dried wolfsbane flower and the tarnished silver coin lay on Evelyn's coffee table, stark against the minimalist decor, a chilling tableau of her new reality. The hunter's shadow. They had found her. They knew. The cold fury that had initially solidified her resolve was now tempered with a pervasive, visceral fear. This wasn't a game she could win with wit and charm alone. This was a war, and she was dangerously outmatched.
Her conversation with Kairos had left her with more questions than answers, each piece of confirmed information a stepping stone into a deeper, more treacherous darkness. Alphas. Hunters. Wolfsbane. Silver. These weren't just words; they were the lexicon of a hidden world, a world Lucien Blackwood inhabited with silent, brutal authority.
Unbeknownst to Evelyn, the consequences of her online ventures and the hunter's crude warning had already reached the very apex of that world.
In the steel-grey command center of Blackwood Manor, Lucien Blackwood listened, his patience stretched taut. Marcus stood before him, a grim messenger, detailing Evelyn's recent activities.
"She's been on the dark net, Alpha," Marcus reported, his voice low and precise. "Accessing encrypted forums, making inquiries about… anomalies. And the Silverleaf Coin was found at her door this morning. Crushed wolfsbane, too. A hunter's warning."
Lucien's jaw tightened, a muscle jumping in his cheek. His rage, a slow-burning fire, now erupted, searing and uncontrolled. He had tolerated her audacity, even found a perverse fascination in her newfound defiance. He had watched her, kept her safe within his periphery, a problematic but intriguing curiosity. But this… this was an escalation. This was reckless, suicidal.
"Anomalies," Lucien snarled, the word heavy with contempt. "She's dabbling in things she cannot possibly comprehend. And now the hunters are involved. My God, the idiotic human." His wolf raged, a feral snarl echoing in his mind. The scent of her, that volatile mix of gunpowder, burnt sugar, and defiance, now carried a new, alarming note of impending doom. His anger was a shield, barely concealing the raw, unsettling dread that coiled in his gut. His ex-wife, the fragile human he had all but forgotten, was deliberately placing herself in the crosshairs of a conflict that predated humanity, a conflict that could shred her into oblivion. And she was doing it because of him. Because of his world.
"Get me the car," he commanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Now."
Evelyn was returning from a walk, her mind still reeling from the hunter's warning, when the sleek, obsidian-black limousine materialized at the curb of the Onyx Tower. It was undeniably Lucien's car, the one Marcus usually drove. But this time, the driver's seat was empty. And the back passenger window slid down, revealing Lucien Blackwood himself, his face a mask of cold, unyielding fury.
"Get in, Evelyn," he commanded, his voice devoid of warmth, yet laced with an undeniable, dangerous edge. It wasn't a request. It was an Alpha's order.
A shiver of fear, cold and sharp, traced Evelyn's spine. Her instincts screamed at her to run, to flee from the predator who had come to claim her. But the defiant part of her, the part forged in silver and wolfsbane, refused. She met his gaze, her emerald eyes blazing with a mixture of defiance and cold, burgeoning hatred.
"I have no intention of getting into your car, Lucien," she retorted, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. "Our business is concluded."
His jaw tightened. "Get in, Evelyn. Unless you prefer to have this conversation on a public street, where every passerby can witness your reckless folly." His eyes flickered to the pedestrians, then back to her, a silent threat. He knew she wouldn't risk a scene, not now, not when she was building her new facade.
With a final, frustrated sigh, Evelyn walked around the car and slid into the opulent, leather-lined interior. The door closed with a soft, ominous click, sealing them in a cocoon of suffocating silence and escalating tension. The air was immediately thick with the heavy, primal scent of him – pine, metal, and now, a sharp, almost animalistic edge of uncontrolled frustration and simmering rage. It filled the confined space, assaulting her senses, making her heart pound a frantic rhythm.
"What do you think you're doing, Evelyn?" he growled, his voice low, vibrating with suppressed power. He didn't turn to face her completely, but his entire body language radiated aggression. "Do you have any idea what you're playing with? You've been digging. Online. Asking questions. And now the hunters have noticed you. Do you have a death wish?"
His accusation, direct and unyielding, stripped away her carefully constructed composure. Fear, raw and visceral, threatened to consume her, but it was quickly overshadowed by a surge of pure, unadulterated anger. He knows. He actually knows.
"What I do is none of your concern, Lucien," she shot back, her voice sharper than she intended. "You divested yourself of me, remember? You signed those papers. What happens in my life is no longer your business."
He finally turned, his storm-cloud eyes blazing, pinning her with a gaze that seemed to strip her bare. His proximity in the confined space was suffocating, his physical presence overwhelming. The faint scent of her own wolfsbane-infused blood pulsed in her veins, responding to his Alpha aura with a terrifying, contradictory mix of fear and an undeniable, biological pull.
"None of my concern?" he scoffed, a dark, humorless laugh. "When your recklessness threatens to destabilize a centuries-old truce? When your foolish curiosity leads you directly into the path of creatures who would gut you just for sport? When my pack's existence is potentially jeopardized by a human who can't distinguish between a fairy tale and a deadly reality?"
"You left me in the dark!" Evelyn exploded, her own carefully cultivated mask finally shattering. The words poured out, raw and unfiltered, fueled by years of silent hurt and her recent, brutal death. "You left me vulnerable! You married me, Lucien, and then you kept me ignorant, wrapped in a comfortable lie, while your world, your real world, lurked in the shadows! What was I supposed to do when Alexander Crowe, a man who seemed to offer a way out, came along? You drove me to him with your indifference, your coldness! What was I supposed to do?"
Her words struck him like a physical blow. His face, usually a study in granite-like impassivity, flickered with surprise, then a deeper, more profound anger. His wolf, usually a disciplined force, snarled, a low, guttural sound that resonated deep in Evelyn's bones. He remembered the coldness, the distance. He remembered his duty to the pack, his need to protect her from truths he thought she couldn't bear. And he saw, with a horrifying clarity, the unintentional consequences.
"Crowe is a monster, Evelyn," he growled, his voice laced with venom. "He would have used you, destroyed you. He did use you. You had no idea what he was, what he represented."
"And you did?" she countered, her voice laced with bitter sarcasm. "You knew everything, yet you said nothing! You allowed me to walk into a trap! To be manipulated, to be… to be betrayed by a man who was working with one of your kind!" The words slipped out, raw and painful, a flicker of the truth she harbored. One of your kind. The wolfsbane. The silver. Chloe.
His eyes narrowed, instantly picking up on the nuance, the specific choice of words. "My kind?" he questioned, his voice dangerously soft. "What do you know of 'my kind'? Who has been filling your head with such nonsense? Was it Crowe? What did he tell you?" He reached out, his hand closing around her wrist, his grip firm, almost bruising. It wasn't meant to hurt, but to emphasize, to demand the truth.
The contact was a shock, a jolt of raw, primal energy that surged through Evelyn. His skin was warm, radiating a controlled power that made her own blood hum. Her enhanced senses registered the subtle shift in his pheromones – a heightened aggression, yes, but also a deeper, almost frantic note of possessiveness, of concern. She looked into his eyes, and for a fleeting moment, she saw not just anger, but a raw, unsettling fear for her safety, a depth of emotion she had never witnessed from him before. And in that same instant, beneath her terror, a dangerous, forbidden spark ignited, a response to the undeniable, almost painful attraction that flared between them, amplified by the confinement and the sheer intensity of their confrontation.
He was so close, his breath warm on her face, his lips a hair's breadth from hers. The air crackled with unspoken words, with the weight of their past, the danger of their present, and a raw, biological magnetism that defied all reason. He could have kissed her, claimed her then, his Alpha instinct overriding his human control. For a moment, she thought he might. For a terrifying, exhilarating second, she almost wanted him to.
But then, with a sharp intake of breath, he pulled back, his jaw clenching, the feral glint in his eyes receding behind a mask of cold fury. His grip on her wrist loosened, though the imprint of his fingers lingered.
"You will stop this, Evelyn," he stated, his voice now a low, guttural command, utterly devoid of any lingering tenderness. "You will cease your inquiries into matters that do not concern you. You will sever all ties with Alexander Crowe, immediately and completely. And you will confine yourself to your apartment, under my protection, for the foreseeable future. If you do not, I will take measures to ensure your safety. Measures you will not enjoy." His words were a threat, but the underlying intention was a desperate, fierce protection. He would not allow her to get herself killed again, not when her death now felt like a direct consequence of his own guarded secrets.
He then signaled to his driver, who had been waiting silently in the front. The car came to a smooth halt in front of the Onyx Tower. "Get out."
Evelyn, shaken, furious, and bewilderingly aroused, did as she was told. She stepped out of the car, breathing in the cold night air, trying to clear her head. The limo sped away, leaving her standing alone, trembling, on the pavement.
She made her way back to her penthouse, her emotions a chaotic maelstrom. She hated his arrogance, his possessiveness, his terrifying power. But a sliver of her, a part she refused to acknowledge, had registered the raw, almost desperate concern in his eyes. He wasn't just angry; he was genuinely afraid for her. And that fear, expressed in such a brutal, Alpha way, stirred something dangerous and confusing within her. It confirmed her path. It confirmed that her life, and her death, mattered to him in a way she had never understood.
In the opulent, silent confines of his limousine, Lucien Blackwood clenched his fists, knuckles white. The scent of her – the gunpowder, the defiance, and that terrifying, delicate hint of wolfsbane – clung to his senses, driving his wolf into a frenzy of possessive rage and protective instinct. He had failed to get the full truth. But he had made his intentions clear.
"Marcus," he growled into his earpiece, his voice strained with barely controlled emotion. "I want a full detail on her. Twenty-four-seven. Nothing happens to her. And if those hunters so much as breathe in her direction, I want to know. Immediately." His ex-wife, the human he had discarded, was now a protected territory. A vital, infuriating part of his pack, whether she knew it or not. And woe betide anyone who dared to touch her.