Elara's trembling fingers clutched the panic button, her heart hammering against her ribs as she stared at the black rose on her bedroom floor. The card with Jonah Thornwood's message seemed to burn in her other hand, its threat unmistakable.
"Three years, three months, three days. He has been waiting. Planning. And now he has found me."
She pressed the panic button again, harder this time. As if the force of her desperation could somehow speed Damon's response. The silence in her apartment felt suffocating. Broken only by her shallow breathing and the distant ticking of the kitchen clock.
Seconds stretched into minutes with no response. Had the device failed? Or had Damon simply offered it as a false comfort. Never intending to actually help her?
A faint sound from the living room made her freeze. The subtle creak of a floorboard. The whisper of fabric against fabric. Someone was still in her apartment.
Did he never leave? Or did he come back? She did not dare to investigate.
Elara's gaze darted towards her window. Two stories up. Too high to jump without injury. The phone on her nightstand seemed miles away. Though it was just inches from her hand.
Another creak, closer now. The bedroom door she had closed after finding the rose remained shut. But she could see the shadow of feet interrupting the thin strip of light beneath it.
Her throat constricted with terror. The pendant at her neck pulsed with warmth. As if responding to her fear. Without conscious thought, her fingers wrapped around it. Seeking comfort in its familiar contours.
The doorknob turned slowly.
Elara backed away until her shoulders hit the wall. Her options were limited. She could try to escape through the window and risk breaking bones. She could attempt to call for help. Though who would reach her in time? Or she could use her voice as a weapon. As she had that night in Chicago.
But using her power that way had killed a man. And despite the danger. Despite her terror. Elara was not sure she could deliberately take another life, even to save her own.
The door inched open.
A shadow fell across the threshold. Tall and menacing. Elara's breath caught in her throat. Then the shadow split into two. Multiple intruders.
"Where is Damon? Did the panic button even work?" She thought to herself.
The sharp crack of splintering wood from the living room interrupted her thought. The front door was being forced open. The shadows at her bedroom door froze, then shifted, turning toward the sound from the living room.
"She's in here," a gruff voice whispered from the doorway. Male. Unfamiliar.
"Grab her," another voice commanded. "Quickly."
Two men burst into her bedroom. Darkly dressed. Faces obscured by ski masks. Professional. Focused. Not random burglars. But men on a mission. One held a syringe. The other held zip ties.
Elara opened her mouth to scream. But the man with the syringe lunged for her with startling speed. His hand clamped over her mouth, muffling her cry. The other seized her wrists, pinning them together.
"Do not fight," the first man hissed. "We are not here to hurt you. But we will if necessary."
Elara bit down hard on the hand covering her mouth. The man swore but did not release her. The needle hovered inches from her neck.
Then the bedroom door crashed inward with such force that it tore from its hinges. A blur of movement followed. Too fast for Elara's eyes to track. Her attackers were ripped away from her. Bodies flying across the room like rag dolls.
And there stood Damon Blackwood, his usually composed demeanor shattered. His chest heaved with rage. Eyes blazing with an inhuman gold light. His hands curled into fists at his sides. Every muscle taut as if barely restraining violence.
"Are you hurt?" he demanded, his voice deeper, rougher than she remembered.
Elara shook her head, unable to speak through her terror.
One of the attackers recovered faster than his partner, drawing a gun from beneath his jacket. He fired twice in rapid succession. Elara screamed, certain she was about to watch Damon die.
Instead, Damon moved with impossible speed. The bullets struck the wall where he had stood a split second before. Then he was on the gunman, seizing him by the throat with one hand, lifting him entirely off the floor.
The transformation happened so suddenly that Elara wondered if her terrified mind was hallucinating. Damon's face elongated. His jaw stretched, filled with teeth too long and sharp for any human mouth. Coarse dark hair sprouted along his forearms where his sleeves had ridden up. His fingers lengthened into claws that dug into the attacker's throat, drawing beads of blood.
A sound emerged from Damon's throat. A growl that rumbled through the room like distant thunder. Primal and terrifying.
The gunman's eyes bulged with fear. He clawed uselessly at Damon's grip. Feet dangling above the floor. His partner tried to flee, scrambling toward the door on hands and knees.
Damon's head snapped toward the second attacker. With the gunman still dangling from one hand, he seized the other man by the ankle, dragging him back into the room. The man's fingernails left desperate furrows in the wooden floor.
"Who sent you?" Damon snarled, his voice distorted by his partially transformed jaw.
Neither man answered. The one in Damon's grip was turning purple, oxygen depleted.
"Damon please," Elara whispered, finding her voice at last. "Do not kill him."
Something in her tone seemed to penetrate Damon's rage. His grip loosened slightly. The man gasped for air.
"Last chance," Damon growled. "Who sent you?"
Instead of answering, the man's eyes rolled back. Foam appeared at the corners of his mouth. The same happened to his partner simultaneously. Both convulsing violently before going completely limp.
"Suicide capsules," Damon said grimly, dropping the now-lifeless bodies. His face was shifting back to human form, though his eyes still burned gold.
Elara stared in horror at the dead men, then at Damon. Her mind struggled to process what she had just witnessed. The attack. Damon's brutal response. The impossible transformation of his features.
"You are," she couldn't finish the sentence.
"A werewolf," Damon confirmed, his voice returning to its normal register as his facial features completed their transformation back to human. Only his eyes remained changed, still glowing with that eerie golden light. "Yes."
Elara's legs gave way. She sank to the floor, trembling uncontrollably. Not just from fear of the attack. But from the reality Damon had just confirmed. Werewolves were real. And so, perhaps, were Sirens. Everything she thought she knew about the world had just been upended.
"We need to go," Damon said, moving to her closet and pulling out a duffel bag. "Pack what you need. Only essentials. You cannot stay here."
"I'm not going anywhere with you," Elara managed, though her protest sounded weak even to her own ears.