Read Chapter 12: The Caged Secret

The dart gun felt heavier than it should, a guilt-edged weight against her thigh. Iona had stolen it from her own veterinary bag, filled with enough ketamine to drop a stag. The lies she'd told herself on the walk here—that she was protecting the deer, that the howls were just wolves, that she needed proof—crumbled like dry peat the moment she stepped into the cool, earthen breath of the cave.

The entrance was exactly as Lachlan had shown her, a jagged gash in the moor’s flank disguised by heather. Her torch beam carved a trembling path through the dark. The tunnel narrowed, then opened into a chamber that smelled of damp stone and something else. Something warm and animal. A musky, copper-tinged scent that made her pulse quicken.

And then she heard it. Not a howl, but a whimper. A sound so broken it almost stopped her heart.

The torch swept across the chamber’s far wall, and Iona froze.

Iron bars. A cage, built into the rock itself, thick rusted spears sunk into the floor and ceiling. And inside, a massive shape lay curled in the shadows. A wolf, its black fur matted and slick with sweat. Its flank rose and fell in ragged, shallow breaths. A thick leather collar encircled its neck, and from it hung a silver pendant that caught the torchlight: a tree, its branches curling into a crescent moon.

The Blackwood crest.

Her breath hitched. This was no ordinary wolf. It was too large, its limbs too long, its skull too angular. As she watched, the creature shifted, a low growl rumbling from its throat as it half-lifted its head. Its eyes, half-lidded and glazed with sedation or exhaustion, found hers.

They were not the eyes of a beast. They were the eyes of a man trapped in agony.

The locket at her throat seared hot against her skin.

She took a step closer, drawn by a terrible, aching pity. The wolf whined again, pressing its muzzle against the bars. She reached out a hand, fingers trembling, toward the thick, sweat-damp fur.

“Don’t.”

The voice was low and ragged, coming from behind her. Iona spun, raising the dart gun on instinct. Lachlan stood at the edge of the torchlight, his chest heaving, his face a mask of fury and terror. He was barefoot, his shirt half-untucked from his trousers, as if he’d run all the way across the moor.

“Lachlan,” she breathed.

“I told you to stay away.” His voice cracked. He took a step forward, and the torchlight caught his arm. The fabric of his shirt was torn from shoulder to elbow, and beneath it, the flesh was… wrong. Raw, torn, as if recently healed from a savage bite. But it was the mark on his inner forearm that made her forget to breathe.

A tattoo. The same tree-and-crescent symbol as the collar, inked dark against his pale skin.

Her gaze flicked from the tattoo to the chained wolf, then back to his face. The pieces clicked into place with a sickening, crystalline clarity.

“Your brother,” she whispered. “The one everyone said ran away. He’s here. He’s the wolf.”

Lachlan flinched as if she’d struck him. He took another step closer, his body a taut line of barely contained rage and shame. “You have no idea what you’ve done. Coming here. Poking your nose into things that were never meant for you.”

“I saw the cuffs on his paws, Lachlan,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady despite the pounding of her heart. “You have him chained like an animal. He’s your brother.”

“He *is* an animal!” Lachlan roared, the sound echoing off the stone walls. The wolf yelped and cowered deeper into its cage. Lachlan’s face crumpled, and for a moment, he looked utterly destroyed. “He couldn’t control it. The change. He hurt people. He would have killed someone. This was the only way.”

He was close enough now that she could see the faint tremor in his hands. Iona lowered the dart gun, her own weapon suddenly feeling obscene. She was trembling now, not from fear of him, but from the sheer weight of his grief.

“This is why you vanish,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “All of you. The full moon. You’re… you’re like him.”

Lachlan said nothing. His silence was an admission louder than any roar. He reached out and closed his fist around the barrel of the dart gun, gently, almost tenderly, and pulled it from her slack grip.

“I told you,” he said, his voice choked, “that what the truth would do to you… it wasn’t a threat. It was a warning.”

He turned away from her, his shoulders heaving with a breath that seemed to cost him everything. He walked toward the cage and placed a hand on the bars. The wolf pressed its great head against his palm, a low, mournful sound escaping its throat.

“I have to lock you out,” he said, not looking at her. “The entrance. It has a gate. For the full moon. I have to keep him from getting out. And I have to keep the others from getting in.”

He took a step toward the tunnel, blocking her path. His eyes, when he finally met hers, were hollow. “Go. Iona. Please. Get out of here. And for the love of God, do not tell anyone what you saw tonight.”

She stood rooted to the spot, the locket now cold against her chest. She had seen enough. The chained wolf. The feral grief in Lachlan’s eyes. The tattoo, the collar. They were not a family keeping a secret. They were a family caging their cursed blood.

He turned and walked into the darkness of the tunnel, not waiting for her. Iona stayed behind, listening to the muffled, heartbroken sound of a man who had just shown her his prison, and was now locking himself inside it with the inmate.

She knew the truth now. Every howl in the night, every missing poster, every hushed warning, every veiled hesitation in Lachlan’s eyes. It all led to this.

The Blackwoods were wolves. And the wolf in the cage was not the only one bound by chains.