Read Chapter 13: The Breaking Point

The night air bit at her face as she stumbled away from the cave mouth, her boots sliding on wet heather. Behind her, the moor swallowed the entrance whole—just rock and shadow and the fading echo of a sound she couldn't unhear. The chain had rattled. The wolf had snarled. And Lachlan had stood there, bare-armed, tattooed, human, locking himself inside.

She didn't stop walking until her cottage door was bolted behind her. Her hands shook as she filled the kettle, then abandoned it. She sat at the kitchen table in the dark, the locket cold and still against her chest, and tried to reconcile the man who'd walked with her through the hills, who'd given her his number and promised to come if she was in danger, with the man who'd just chained himself to his brother.

Werewolf. The word felt ridiculous, a folk tale, something she'd laughed at in university pubs. But the image of that wolf—the Blackwood collar, the familiar grey of Lachlan's eyes in the animal's gaze—wouldn't leave her.

She didn't sleep. When dawn broke over the hills, grey and indifferent, Iona was already at the clinic, pretending to review patient files she couldn't focus on. The veterinary oath felt thin this morning. *First, do no harm.* Except she'd stolen tranquilizers, and she'd watched a man cage his own brother, and she'd done nothing.

The bell above the clinic door chimed at nine.

Lachlan Blackwood stood in the doorway, rain-darkened hair plastered to his forehead, wearing a waxed jacket that had seen better years. He looked like he hadn't slept either. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and his jaw was set in a way that made her think of stone walls.

"You came," she said, surprised.

"I said I would."

"Not for that." She crossed her arms. "I thought you'd be . . . recovering."

Something flickered in his expression—amusement, maybe, or pain. "The transformation takes less out of me than it used to. Or maybe I've just learned to endure it." He stepped inside, letting the door close behind him. "May I?"

She gestured to the chair by her desk. He sat, and for a long moment neither of them spoke. The clock on the wall ticked. Outside, a tractor rumbled past.

"Iona." He said her name like it cost him something. "You saw. So I'm going to stop pretending, and I'm going to ask you to do something that might make you walk out that door and never speak to me again."

"Try me."

He folded his hands on his knees. "You know what we are now. The Blackwood family—we're the last of our kind. A curse laid on my bloodline four generations ago, and we've spent every year since hiding it. The estate, the land, the village: they're ours to protect. If anyone discovers what we are, the family dies. The pack dies. Everything we've built to keep ourselves hidden falls apart."

Iona heard the words, but her mind kept snagging on the image of the chained wolf. "Your brother."

Lachlan's jaw tightened. "Duncan was born like me, like all of us are. The change is . . . manageable, when you're raised to it. The moon calls, the wolf rises, you run the hills and come back to yourself by morning. It's a burden, but it's a known one." He paused. "Two years ago, a rogue wolf found him on the eastern edge of our land. Bit him. And whatever that thing was, it poisoned him."

"Poisoned?"

"Corrupted. A bite from one of them doesn't just turn a person—it twists what's already there. Duncan can't control the shift anymore. The wolf inside him is . . . feral. It doesn't recognize him when it takes over. He's dangerous to himself, to the pack, to anyone who gets too close." Lachlan's voice dropped. "Every full moon, I chain him in that chamber. I stay with him. I try to talk him back. And every month, it gets a little harder."

The weight of it pressed against Iona's chest. She thought of the dog she'd treated weeks ago, the strange wounds she couldn't quite identify. "Is that what attacked the MacAllister dog? Your brother?"

"No." The word came fast, sharp. "That wasn't Duncan. He was chained that night—I swear it."

"Then what was it?"

Lachlan's eyes met hers, and for a moment she saw something raw in them, something that looked almost like fear. "That's part of why I'm here. I need your help, Iona. He's getting weaker. The transformation tears him apart more each time. He's losing blood, losing weight, and I don't know what else to do." He leaned forward. "You're a vet. You know animal physiology better than any doctor in Inverness. If anyone can figure out how to keep him alive through the change, it's you."

The request landed like a stone in still water. Her oath. Her training. Her fear. "You're asking me to treat a wolf that will try to kill me."

"When it's him—the man—he recognizes you. He's frightened. He doesn't want to hurt anyone." Lachlan's voice cracked. "It's not his fault. None of this is his fault."

Iona stared at the floor, running her thumb along the edge of the locket through her jumper. It was warm—not hot with warning, but warm, like a hand held too long against skin. She thought of her father, of the newspaper clipping folded in her drawer. He'd asked questions about the Blackwoods. He'd died for it. And here she was, being asked to step deeper into the same current.

"If I help you," she said slowly, "I need something from you first."

"Anything."

"Morag MacIntyre."

Lachlan went very still. The warmth in the locket flickered, turning cooler, and she felt it like a warning.

"The photograph in the estate," she continued. "The villagers still talk about her. The anniversary of her disappearance just passed. Morag vanished from this village fifteen years ago, and you told me you didn't know her. But the locket I wear belonged to her, and it's been drawing me toward answers I can't explain." She pulled it from beneath her jumper, the silver dull in the clinic's fluorescent light. "Tell me who she was. Tell me what happened to her."

Something fractured in Lachlan's expression. He looked away, toward the rain-streaked window, and for a long moment she thought he would refuse.

"She was my mother's sister," he said finally. "My aunt."

Iona's fingers closed around the locket. "She disappeared from this village."

"She ran." Lachlan's voice was hollow. "The family had kept their secret for years, but Morag fell in love with a man from Glasgow—a journalist. He started asking questions. Looking too hard. My grandfather panicked, told her she had to end it or the family would be exposed. She refused. She said she was leaving, taking the story to the press if she had to, to protect herself."

"And?"

"And the full moon came." He closed his eyes. "She didn't run fast enough. A wolf found her before she could reach the road."

"A wolf." Iona felt the word settle between them, heavy with implication. "Your family?"

"No." Lachlan opened his eyes, and the pain in them was unmistakable. "The rogue. The same one that bit Duncan. It was already out there, hunting. Morag was just . . . unlucky."

Iona's mind reeled. She'd assumed the Blackwoods were responsible. Everyone in the village did—though no one had said it aloud. But the way Lachlan spoke, the grief threaded through his voice, suggested a truth buried even deeper.

"The man she'd fallen in love with," she pressed. "Did he ever learn what happened?"

Lachlan was quiet for a moment. "He tried. He kept asking questions for years." He met her eyes. "He was your father, wasn't he? Callum MacRae."

The words hit like a physical blow. Iona gripped the edge of the desk. "How do you—"

"He came to the estate three weeks before he died. Asked about Morag, about the family, about the land. I told him the same thing I told you at first: that I didn't know her." Lachlan's voice was gentle now, stripped of defense. "He knew I was lying. But he left. I don't know what he found after that, or who he spoke to. Only that someone else was asking the same questions. And they didn't want answers."

"Someone killed him." Iona's throat tightened. "The police said it was a fall. An accident on the hills."

"It wasn't. He was asking about the rogue. The same wolf that killed my aunt and bit my brother. There are forces in these hills beyond my family, Iona. We're cursed, but we're not the only thing out there—and some of the others are far less merciful."

She thought of Gareth's warning in the library. *The family isn't the only monster in the hills.*

"Show me," she said. "You said you'd show me the truth about Morag. Prove it to me, and I'll help your brother."

Lachlan stood. He crossed to her, close enough that she could smell rain and pine and something older, like earth after a storm. His hand hovered near hers, not quite touching.

"I'll show you her grave. It's on our land, in a place we keep hidden." His voice was barely above a whisper. "But understand, Iona—once you see what's out there, truly see it, you can't unsee it. You'll be in the fight with us. Against the rogue, against everything that threatens this family." He searched her face. "Is that what you want?"

The locket was warm against her chest. Steady. Certain.

She thought of her father, stubborn and curious, who'd chased the truth to his death. She thought of Duncan chained in a cave, terrified of what he could become. She thought of the village that whispered and never knew, and of Lachlan, who had just given her more honesty in five minutes than she'd gotten from anyone in years.

"Yes," she said. "Show me."