I slipped through the rusted iron door of The Vault. The stone chamber felt just as freezing as last night.

Earlier in the corridor, Mason had stepped out of his room. He took one sniff of my neck, sneered at the heavy stench of cedar and bourbon radiating from Kade's bite, and retreated behind his door. The mark acted as a shield.

I marched straight toward the massive skeleton in the center of the room. Right before I passed out yesterday, I saw it. A small, leather-bound book wedged between the First Alpha's massive skeletal jaws. My father's journal.

I yanked the book free. Dust coated my fingers. I flipped the cover open.

"Ava," I read my father's messy scrawl aloud, my voice echoing off the damp walls. "If you read this, they caught you. I'm sorry."

I ran my finger over the ink.

"They don't want my life," I continued reading. "They want yours. You aren't a normal human, you are—"

The letters twisted. The black ink curled inward, writhing like dying insects on the parchment.

"What?" I muttered, wiping at the page. "Stop."

The words erased themselves. The paper rejected my eyes. I frantically flipped to the next page. Blank. The next. Blank.

"No, no, no. Tell me!" I yelled at the book. "What am I?"

Sentences materialized and instantly dissolved into gray ash. I shook the binding. Only two words flared bright red against the final page before vanishing entirely.

*Anchor Bloodline.*

The leather crumbled. The entire journal turned to dust, slipping through my fingers to the stone floor.

"You smell like Kade."

I spun around. Jax leaned against the heavy iron door, blocking my exit. His fiery red hair caught the dim light.

"And lies," Jax added, stepping into the chamber. "Lots of lies."

"Get out of my way, Jax," I demanded.

He didn't move. His golden eyes locked onto the angry, bruised bite mark on my collarbone. His nostrils flared. "He overwrote me. My mark was there first."

"I'm not a whiteboard," I snapped. "Move."

"He thinks he owns you now," Jax growled, closing the distance between us in two long strides. He backed me against the cold stone wall. "I found you first. You're my toy."

"Don't touch me," I warned, pressing my palms flat against the rock.

"Or what?" Jax taunted. He reached for my throat.

I ducked under his arm, shoved his hip hard, and bolted past him.

"Ava!" he barked.

I sprinted out of The Vault, tearing down the main hallway. My bare feet slapped against the hardwood. I grabbed the first brass handle I saw, shoved the door inward, and threw myself inside.

I slammed the heavy bolt shut.

My shoulders hit the wood. I sucked in a massive gulp of air. Safe.

Soft piano music drifted through the room. Classical. Debussy.

I turned my head.

A waterproof record player sat on the edge of a massive, claw-foot bathtub.

Kade lay submerged in the water. Fully clothed. A crisp white dress shirt clung to his chest, and black trousers darkened in the bath. He didn't even open his eyes.

But that wasn't the craziest part.

A massive, soaking wet black wolf tail hung over the porcelain edge, dripping onto the tile.

"What in the world are you doing?" I whispered.

"Listening to music," Kade replied, his voice entirely flat.

"You're fully clothed in a bathtub. With a tail."

"The water is calming."

Fists pounded against the door behind me. The wood rattled.

"Open the door, Ava!" Jax shouted from the hallway. "You can't hide in there forever!"

I pressed my hands against the panels, bracing my weight. "Leave me alone!"

"I'm breaking it down!" Jax yelled.

I looked at Kade. "Are you going to let him break the door?"

"He won't," Kade said.

"He sounds pretty determined."

Kade finally opened his eyes. Whiskey-colored irises fixed on the ceiling. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't even sit up.

"This is my territory," Kade stated.

The words carried a bizarre, low-frequency vibration. An infrasonic wave rolled through the air, rattling the mirror and vibrating against my teeth. The pressure pushed outward, slicing right through the solid wood door.

Outside, the pounding stopped instantly. A sharp gasp echoed in the hall. Footsteps scrambled backward, turning into a frantic, panicked sprint away from the bathroom.

Silence returned. Just the piano music and the sound of water lapping against porcelain.

Kade gripped the edges of the tub and pulled himself up. Water poured off his clothes in sheets. His black tail twitched, sending droplets flying across the room.

He stepped out, his wet shoes squelching on the tile. He grabbed a white hand towel from the rack and walked toward me.

"You're making a mess," I said, eyeing the puddle forming around his feet.

"You're bleeding," he countered.

He crouched down until we were eye-level. He pressed the soft towel against my collarbone. The fabric stung the fresh wound he had given me the night before.

"Jax broke the scab," I accused, wincing.

"Jax lacks discipline." Kade tossed the bloody towel into the sink.

"He lacks a muzzle. Keep him away from me."

He pressed his bare thumb directly against the pulse point on my neck. His skin felt like ice.

"Your heart is erratic," Kade noted.

"I just ran for my life. What's your excuse for the tail?"

"A side effect of the moon," he answered simply. "Hold still."

"Don't you dare bite me again," I ordered, putting my hands on his wet chest to push him away.

He didn't budge. "I'm not claiming you this time."

"Then what are you doing?"

"Fixing your panic."

He lowered his head. His lips brushed my skin, sending a violent shiver down my spine. Then, his teeth sank in.

It wasn't a sharp, brutal attack like the clearing. It was agonizingly slow. A deep, grinding pressure that bypassed my skin and dug straight into my nervous system.

I gasped, my fingers curling into his soaked shirt.

The metallic tether in my chest snapped tight. My heartbeat stuttered. Then, it shifted rhythm. *Thump-thump.* A pause. *Thump-thump.*

It wasn't my rhythm. It was his. He was forcing my heart to sync with his own.

A tidal wave of emotion crashed into my brain. It didn't belong to me. Starving hunger. Violent possessiveness. A dark, suffocating paranoia that demanded control over every living thing in the house.

"Stop," I choked out, tears stinging my eyes. "It's too much."

Kade pulled back.

His whiskey eyes were gone. I had never seen them do that before — no whiskey, no gold, nothing. Just solid, terrifying black filling his sclera from edge to edge.

He stared at me for a long, silent moment. The heavy emotion radiating from him slowly dialed back, retreating behind his usual cold mask.

"Sleep in the tub," Kade instructed, his voice entirely devoid of inflection.

"Why would I sleep in a wet tub?" I asked, my voice trembling.

"Because it's safer than your room."

He turned around and opened the bathroom door.

He walked out into the hallway, leaving a trail of water behind him. He didn't even try to hide the massive black tail dragging across the floorboards.

I stared at the empty doorway, my forced heartbeat hammering against my ribs.

My knees finally gave out. I sank onto the closed toilet lid, staring at the wet footprints fading on the tile.

I need a bigger spreadsheet.

"Tripwire goes here," a voice mumbled from the edge of the roof.

I froze, my hand hovering over the metal hatch. I had just retrieved my canvas backpack from the tar surface. Inside were my only lifelines in Blackwood Manor: a battered five-year-old laptop, three stale protein bars, and a faded Polaroid of my mother.

"No, a pressure plate is better," the voice continued, echoing off the brick. "She steps on it, the net drops. But I want her to walk in willingly."

"Who are you talking to?" I called out.

I crept to the ledge and peered over.

Leo crouched on the second-floor balcony directly below. He wore a faded gray hoodie, blending into the masonry like a ghost. He dragged a piece of red chalk across the stone floor, sketching an intricate maze.

"Are you building a trap for me?" I demanded.

Leo dropped the chalk. He grabbed the iron railing, swung his body upward, and vaulted onto the roof in one fluid motion.

"Stay back," I warned, stumbling away from the ledge.

He backed me right into the brick chimney. His gray eyes, flecked with bright gold, scanned my face. He studied me like a locked puzzle box he wanted to pry apart.

"You forgot your bag," Leo said.

"And you're drawing booby traps on the balcony," I shot back.

"I like puzzles," he murmured. "Jax claimed your shoulder."

"I didn't ask him to."

He reached out and tapped my collarbone. "Kade claimed your neck."

"He assaulted me."

His fingers trailed down to my right arm. "Griffin claimed your wrist."

I slapped his hand away. "Don't touch me."

"That leaves plenty of territory," he finished.

"I am not a map for you to divide up," I snapped. "I belong to myself."

"Not anymore."

Before I could dart past him, he grabbed my left arm. He yanked it upward.

"Let go of me!" I snapped, aiming a kick straight at his shin.

He ignored the blows. He lowered his face to my exposed left wrist.

"Stop!" I shrieked.

His jaws opened. His canines pierced my skin.

I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the tearing pain I felt with Kade. It didn't come. Leo didn't rip. He pressed. His teeth sank deep into the muscle and held firm. A cold, numbing sensation spread through my veins, leaving a dark, bruised ring of purple around the puncture wounds. A stamp of ownership.

He released my arm. A single drop of blood smeared across his lower lip. He flicked his tongue and licked it clean.

"Are you insane?" I gasped, clutching the fresh wound.

He didn't speak aloud. The words materialized directly inside my skull.

*Run, Ava. I love watching prey run.*

The mental whisper scratched against the inside of my brain.

"Get out of my head!" I screamed.

I shoved past him. I sprinted for the roof hatch, practically throwing myself down the ladder.

"Leave me alone!" I shouted at the empty stairwell.

I didn't stop until I burst through the back patio doors.

The garden was gone.

Yesterday, it was an open lawn of dead grass. Today, towering walls of black thorns twisted ten feet into the air. A living labyrinth.

"What did you do?" I whispered to the empty air.

*I made you a playground.* His voice echoed in my mind again.

I plunged into the narrow dirt path. Thorns tore at my jeans. I took a left. A dead end. I spun around, taking a right. The hedges shifted, closing the gap behind me with a sickening rustle of dry leaves.

"Open up!" I screamed at the briars.

The maze was herding me. Every wrong turn forced me deeper into the center.

The thorny walls parted, dumping me onto a patch of crushed gravel. A small stone chapel stood in the center of the clearing. Its iron doors hung half-open.

I rushed inside. I collapsed onto the cold stone floor, my knees hitting the gravelly surface near the altar. My lungs burned. My hands shook violently.

"Please, just stop," I prayed to the empty room.

The heavy iron doors groaned.

Leo strolled into the chapel.

The moment his sneakers touched the stone, the ground hissed. Plumes of white smoke curled around his ankles. The consecrated earth literally burned him.

He didn't stop. He smiled, his gray eyes shining in the dim light.

"You invited me in," Leo whispered, taking another agonizing step forward. "How polite."

"I didn't invite anyone!" I scrambled backward until my spine hit the wooden pews. "Get out!"

"The maze brought you right to me," he said.

"Because you forced the walls to move!"

"A good puzzle adapts to the player," Leo countered.

"I am not playing a game with you."

"You don't have a choice, Ava."

He lunged. His cold hands wrapped around my windpipe.

I clawed at his fingers. My vision blurred.

*CRACK.*

The sound of shattering timber and stone exploded through the chapel.

Leo released my throat instantly. He spun around.

Silas stood in the doorway.

The massive Alpha blocked the moonlight. His knuckles dripped with fresh, dark blood. Dust coated his shoulders, as if he had punched straight through the masonry to get here.

"Silas," Leo murmured, his voice tight.

Silas didn't utter a single syllable. The silence was heavier than a scream. His blood-red eyes locked onto Leo.

Leo's smile vanished. He raised both hands in the air, a silent surrender. He took a slow step backward, then another, retreating out of the chapel and into the maze.

I gasped for air, clutching my bruised throat. "Thank you."

Silas remained perfectly still. His red gaze dropped to my bleeding left arm. He examined the fresh bite on my wrist. He watched the vein pulse against the purple bruise.

Then, he looked down at his own bloody fists.

"Are you hurt?" I asked, my voice barely a croak.

He didn't offer a hand. He didn't answer my question.

He turned on his heel and melted into the shadows.

I knelt alone on the gravel. A violent shiver racked my spine.

The truth hit me like a physical blow.

Silas didn't track me down to save my life.

He came to see which of his brothers was playing with his favorite toy.

Blood welled on my thumb. Another thorn sliced through my skin as I reached into the dense thicket.

"Add a new column to the spreadsheet," I muttered to myself, wiping the crimson drop on my jeans. "Column D. Emotional toll."

My body felt like a patchwork quilt of ownership. Kade's forced rhythm thumped against my collarbone. Leo’s purple bruise burned hot on my left wrist. Every inch of my skin hummed with foreign energy.

I snapped the stem of a large rose. White petals, bleeding into bright pink edges.

"Those flowers are for the dead."

I spun around, dropping the bloom.

Mason sat perched on the high stone wall of the garden. He kicked his legs back and forth, entirely unbothered by the sheer drop behind him.

"You sneak up on people just like your brothers," I said, rubbing my scarred wrist.

"I didn't sneak," Mason replied. "You were just too busy talking to yourself."

He hopped down from the masonry. He didn't land with a heavy thud. His sneakers barely made a sound on the gravel.

Cradled against his chest was a porcelain doll. Its painted face was mapped with spiderweb cracks. One glass eye stared straight ahead. The other seemed to swivel, locking directly onto my face.

"Stop pointing that thing at me," I demanded.

Mason tilted his head. "She likes you."

"It's a piece of ceramic."

"Everything here is alive, Ava." Mason stepped closer, gesturing to the sprawling hedge. "Even the roses. They grow from people."

I took a step back. "Excuse me?"

"The soil." He kicked a clump of dark dirt. "It feeds on what we bury. The old Luna planted the first seeds. Now, they bloom for the ones who never came back."

He closed the distance between us. I tried to retreat, but my spine hit the thorny bushes.

Mason reached out. His cold fingertips grazed my cheek. He smelled like attic dust and old lace.

"You aren't dead yet," he whispered, examining my face like a rare insect pinned to a board.

"I plan to keep it that way."

"But you will be someday." Mason smiled. A completely hollow, terrifyingly sweet curve of his lips. "That's why I keep them."

He held the cracked doll up to my eye level.

"They don't die," he explained. "They don't leave. They just stay forever."

"I'm not a doll, Mason."

"Not yet." He grabbed my uninjured right hand. His grip was iron. "Come on. I want to show you her garden."

"Let go of me!" I yanked my arm, but he dragged me effortlessly into the towering black maze.

The thorns didn't shift or attack him. They parted like obedient servants, clearing a direct path to the far edge of the estate.

We spilled out of the labyrinth onto a barren patch of earth. No grass. No flowers. Just three jagged slabs of black marble jutting from the frost-covered ground.

The family graveyard.

Mason dragged me to the center stone. He finally released my hand and dropped to his knees.

I rubbed my knuckles, reading the carved letters.

*ELARA BLACKWOOD.*

*BELOVED, FORGOTTEN.*

"Who puts 'forgotten' on a tombstone?" I asked, staring at the brutal inscription.

"Our father," Mason answered. He set the porcelain doll gently at the base of the marble block.

"Why?"

"Because she chose the moon over us." Mason traced the letters with a filthy fingernail. "That's what he told us. She ran into the woods and never came back."

"I'm sorry," I offered, unsure of what else to say to a volatile werewolf.

"I waited by the front door." Mason didn't look at me. "Every single day. For a whole year. I sat on the rug until my legs went numb."

"You were a kid."

"Do you know what I learned, Ava?"

He stood up. The sweet, hollow smile was gone. Tears spilled over his lower lashes, tracking through the dirt on his cheeks. He laughed, a broken, jagged sound that scraped against my eardrums.

"Only the people you keep are the ones who don't leave," Mason stated.

He lunged forward.

Both of his hands clamped onto my shoulders. His fingers dug painfully into my collarbones. He shoved me backward until my calves hit the cold marble of his mother's grave.

"Let me keep you," he begged, his voice cracking.

He buried his face in the crook of my neck. His hot breath washed over my skin.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I braced for the agonizing pierce of teeth. I waited for him to claim his piece of the map, just like Kade and Leo.

The bite never came.

Above us, the thick morning clouds finally broke. A beam of pale, daytime moonlight sliced through the gray sky.

The silver light hit my face.

*SNAP.*

The metallic tether buried deep inside my ribs violently vibrated. It wasn't a forced rhythm like Kade's. It wasn't a cold numbing pressure like Leo's.

This was a massive, seismic shockwave erupting directly from my own blood.

My chest heaved. I gasped for air, but my lungs wouldn't expand.

Mason jerked his head up.

His chest collided with mine. A shock of static electricity arched between our shirts.

*Thump-thump.*

My heart hammered against my sternum.

*Thump-thump.*

Mason's chest echoed the exact same rhythm.

He didn't bite me. He didn't even break my skin. The moon simply reached down and touched me.

"What did you do?" Mason stammered.

He stumbled backward, dropping his hands from my shoulders as if my shirt had caught fire.

"I didn't do anything!" I yelled, clutching my chest.

The resonance hummed louder, vibrating through my veins. It felt like a locked door inside my DNA was being violently kicked open.

Mason's pupils dilated until his eyes were entirely black. He stared at my chest, tracking the impossible, synchronized drumming.

"What is that?" his voice trembled.

I stared down at my trembling hands. The veins under my skin glowed with a faint, terrifying silver tint.

I didn't have an answer for him. But the journal's vanishing words flashed through my mind.

*Anchor Bloodline.*

Tomorrow was the true full moon. The Pack would run. The brothers would hunt.

And whatever monster was currently waking up inside my blood was preparing to answer their call.

A low, guttural growl echoed from the edge of the graveyard.

I whipped my head toward the sound.

Silas stepped out of the black thorns. His red eyes locked onto me, burning with a lethal, unhinged fury.

And he was staring directly at the silver glow pulsing in my veins.