Chapter 1 - The Woman Who Didn’t Run
Mara Vale opened her eyes and whispered, "Please don't make me leave."
Kellen Croft sat beside her with a black envelope clenched in one hand.
A silver number eight had been scratched into its wax seal.
It had not been there when Mara fell asleep.
Someone had entered the house.
For three seconds, neither of them moved.
Mara lay curled beneath the heavy black blanket on the enormous velvet sofa, one hand beneath her cheek. Her brown hair had fallen across her face while she slept. The ivory sweater she wore was too large for her, the sleeves covering most of her fingers. Her gray plaid pants were wrinkled from hours of travel.
She did not look like a woman who had come to seduce a powerful man.
She looked exhausted.
Kellen had spent most of the night waiting for that exhaustion to turn into fear.
It hadn't.
That bothered him more than screaming would have.
"Say that again," he said.
Mara blinked sleepily. "I said don't make me leave."
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Pacific threw itself against the cliffs below the estate. Rain streaked the glass. A flash of distant lightning illuminated the jagged coastline for half a second.
Kellen barely noticed.
His gaze remained on her.
"You're not afraid of me?"
Mara considered the question with insulting seriousness.
"I don't know you well enough to decide."
His jaw tightened.
Most people decided before meeting him.
Kellen Croft had spent fourteen years building a reputation men preferred not to challenge. He owned thousands of acres of timberland, shipping interests from Seattle to Anchorage, private security companies, and enough coastal property that half the peninsula seemed to bend around his name.
But money wasn't the reason strangers lowered their voices when speaking about him.
Neither was the scar along his ribs.
Among the old families hidden in the forests of the Olympic Peninsula, Kellen was something else.
Alpha.
Not the childish version from campfire stories.
Not a man sprouting claws beneath a full moon.
The Croft bloodline carried instincts older than the towns surrounding their land: heightened senses, abnormal strength, violent protective impulses, and a social hierarchy that outsiders seldom understood.
Kellen had inherited all of it.
And three years earlier, after his father's death, he had inherited the title the old families still used behind locked doors.
King.
He hated the word.
Everyone else feared it.
Except, apparently, the woman sleeping on his couch.
Kellen placed the envelope on the marble table.
"Who gave you this?"
Mara pushed herself upright.
"What is it?"
"You tell me."
"I've never seen it."
He watched her pupils.
Steady.
Her heartbeat.
Fast, but not deceptive.
Kellen had always been frighteningly good at recognizing lies.
Mara wasn't lying.
That was the second thing about her that bothered him.
The first was that he hadn't heard anyone enter.
His estate was guarded by electronic gates, motion sensors, infrared cameras, and two men stationed in the security wing.
Nobody walked through his home unnoticed.
Yet the envelope had appeared beside the whiskey decanter sometime during the twenty-two minutes Kellen had stepped into the adjoining study.
He knew because he'd checked.
Twenty-two minutes.
Mara had slept through all of them.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
She rubbed her eyes.
"We've covered this."
"No. You told me your car died three miles down the coastal road."
"It did."
"And you happened to walk toward my property?"
"I saw lights."
"In a storm?"
"I wasn't exactly choosing between luxury resorts."
He leaned back.
"Seven women before you told better stories."
That woke her completely.
"Seven women?"
Kellen immediately regretted saying it.
Mara turned toward him.
"What women?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It sounded like it mattered."
He stood.
At six-foot-three, Kellen had learned years ago what standing did to conversations. People backed away.
Mara merely tipped her head farther upward.
He crossed toward the windows.
"Over the last eighteen months, seven women arrived here under different circumstances."
"Dates?"
"Introductions. Business connections. One was the daughter of an allied family."
"And?"
"Every one left."
Mara glanced toward the darkness outside.
"You said they ran."
Kellen turned.
"They did."
"From you?"
His silence gave her an answer.
Mara studied his face.
It was something Kellen hated being subjected to.
People usually looked at him either greedily or fearfully.
She did neither.
"Did you hurt them?" she asked.
"No."
"Threaten them?"
"No."
"Lock them inside?"
His stare sharpened.
"No."
"Then maybe they weren't running from you."
The sentence landed harder than it should have.
Kellen walked toward her.
"You know nothing about it."
"That's true."
"Then don't pretend you do."
"I wasn't."
Mara swung her feet off the sofa.
"I'm just saying seven people behaving the same strange way usually means there's something connecting them."
"There is."
"You."
Kellen's expression darkened.
Mara shrugged.
"That's what everyone assumes, right?"
He said nothing.
She looked toward the envelope.
"Maybe that's convenient."
Something cold moved through him.
"What does that mean?"
Mara reached toward the table.
Kellen caught her wrist before her fingers touched the envelope.
The movement was instinctive.
Too fast.
Mara froze.
His hand nearly enclosed her wrist.
Kellen immediately released her.
"Don't."
For the first time, caution entered her eyes.
Not terror.
Caution.
"What's inside?"
"I don't know."
"Then open it."
He stared at the seal.
The silver eight had been carved deeply into black wax.
Mara leaned closer.
"Wait."
"What?"
She pointed.
"That symbol."
"It's an eight."
"No."
She reached into the neckline of her sweater and pulled out a thin chain.
A small silver pendant rested at the end.
Kellen stopped breathing.
It wasn't an eight.
It was two crescent shapes crossing around a narrow vertical line.
The symbol on Mara's necklace was identical to the mark stamped into the envelope.
"Where did you get that?"
Mara's fingers closed around the pendant.
"My mother."
"What was her name?"
The question came out harsher than he intended.
Mara recoiled slightly.
"Evelyn Vale."
Kellen went completely still.
He knew that name.
Not from business.
Not from society.
From a file his father had ordered destroyed fifteen years ago.
Evelyn Vale.
Former physician.
Former researcher.
Former adviser to the Croft household.
Missing since Mara was a child.
Official records said Evelyn Vale had died in a boating accident.
Kellen's father had insisted on it.
Kellen remembered standing outside his father's office at seventeen and hearing two men arguing.
One sentence had remained with him.
If Evelyn talks, the line ends with Kellen.
He had never understood it.
Until now.
"Mara."
She sensed the change immediately.
"What?"
"How much do you know about your mother?"
"She died when I was nine."
"Who told you?"
"My aunt."
"Did you ever see her body?"
Mara frowned.
"What kind of question is that?"
"Answer it."
"No."
Kellen's hand tightened around the back of a chair.
Mara stood.
"You're starting to scare me."
"Good."
She blinked.
He hated himself for saying it, but fear might keep her alive.
"Your car didn't break down by accident."
"You don't know that."
"Your mother didn't give you that necklace accidentally."
"She gave it to me when I was six."
"And someone placed the same symbol inside my house tonight."
Mara looked at the envelope.
A low electronic chime sounded.
Both turned toward the wall panel.
Security alert.
Kellen crossed the room and touched the screen.
The estate's gate camera appeared.
No vehicle.
No person.
Only rain.
Another alert sounded.
West corridor.
Kellen switched feeds.
Empty.
Third alert.
Upstairs.
Mara moved closer.
"What is happening?"
"Stay here."
"Kellen—"
"Stay here."
Something in his voice ended the argument.
He moved toward the hallway.
Then stopped.
A scent had touched the air.
Not rain.
Not smoke.
Blood.
Kellen turned toward the staircase.
A single dark drop rested on the marble floor.
Then another.
A trail led from the upstairs landing toward the rear entrance.
His entire body tightened.
Mara whispered, "Is that blood?"
Kellen didn't answer.
He followed the trail.
The rear door was locked.
No broken glass.
No damaged alarm.
On the floor beneath the handle lay a small piece of cream-colored fabric.
He crouched.
Mara came up behind him despite his instruction.
"That's mine."
Kellen looked over his shoulder.
"What?"
She touched the torn edge of her sweater.
A matching piece was missing near the lower seam.
Neither had noticed it.
Mara's face drained of color.
"I didn't come upstairs."
"I know."
"You were with me."
"I know."
The blood trail ended beside the fabric.
Kellen rose slowly.
Somebody was constructing a message.
A message involving Mara.
He returned to the living room, took the envelope, and broke the wax seal.
Inside was a photograph.
Seven women stood in a line.
Every one of the women who had fled his estate.
The picture appeared to have been taken recently.
That was impossible.
Kellen knew two had moved out of the state.
One had supposedly entered a treatment facility in Europe.
Another had disappeared completely.
Yet all seven stood together in the photograph.
Alive.
Watching the camera.
Mara stepped beside him.
"What is that?"
Kellen turned the picture over.
Three words had been written across the back.
SHE IS EIGHT.
Mara's breathing changed.
Kellen felt something else inside the envelope.
A folded note.
He opened it.
Only one sentence.
The king always chooses eight before the blood moon.
Mara read it beside him.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know."
The lights went out.
Instant darkness swallowed the room.
Mara gasped.
Kellen caught her hand.
"Don't move."
The backup lights should have activated immediately.
They didn't.
The fireplace cast weak orange light across the sofa.
Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
Kellen turned his head.
Another creak.
Closer.
Mara whispered, "Someone's here."
"I know."
Then the wall security screen suddenly came alive.
A live camera feed filled the display.
The image showed Kellen's front porch.
A woman stood outside in the rain.
Barefoot.
White dress.
Long dark hair plastered against her face.
Mara stepped toward the screen.
Her fingers slipped from Kellen's hand.
"No."
Kellen looked at her.
She had stopped breathing.
"You know her?"
Mara stared at the woman on the screen.
Tears appeared in her eyes.
"That's impossible."
The woman outside lifted her head.
She looked directly into the camera.
Then she spoke through the intercom.
"Mara."
Mara stumbled backward.
Kellen grabbed her shoulders.
"Who is she?"
Mara's lips trembled.
The woman outside raised one hand and pressed her palm against the door.
Mara finally whispered the answer.
"That's my mother."
The front door unlocked itself.
May you like
The handle began to turn.
And someone on the other side whispered Kellen's name.
