Read Chapter 16: The Village's Fear

The mud on the lane outside the clinic was churned with boot prints by the time Iona arrived the next morning. A cluster of farmers stood by the gate, heads bent together, and she caught the word *wolf* before they saw her and fell silent.

Angus MacPherson, who owned the sheep pasture beyond the moor, stepped forward. His face was grey under his cap. "Dr. MacRae. You were out there yesterday, weren't you? On the high moor."

She gripped her keys. "I was."

"Then you saw what it did to that stag."

It had not been a stag—it had been a deer, torn apart in a way no natural predator in these hills could manage. But she understood the value of choosing her words carefully. "I saw a carcass. I took samples."

"Aye, samples." He spat into the mud. "We don't need samples. We need shotguns."

A murmur of agreement rippled through the men. Iona looked at the faces before her—decent, weathered men whose livelihoods depended on healthy stock and who were now watching something slaughter their animals in ways the old stories warned about. She could not tell them the truth. She could not tell them anything close to it.

"I understand your concern—"

"Concern?" Ewan Bell stepped forward, his jaw tight. "Two of my ewes gone in a week. Colin lost three lambs. And you found whatever it was near the Blackwood land, didn't you?"

The words hung in the cold air. Allie Blackwood. *Blackwood.* She saw how they said it, like a curse.

"The kill was on open moor," she said. "Not on estate land."

"Near enough."

Iona pulled her coat tighter. The wind carried the smell of rain. "Let me examine what I've gathered. There may be disease at work. Rabies, distemper—"

"You think a fox did that to a full-grown deer?"

No. She did not. She thought something far worse had done it, and the truth was locked behind a family name she had sworn to protect.

"Come to the council meeting tonight," Angus said, not as a request. "Seven o'clock, the village hall. We'll decide how to handle this—with or without your input."

They left before she could answer, tramping down the lane in a block of wool and resentment. Iona stood at the clinic door, key in hand, and understood for the first time how thin the line was between the village she had come to love and the mob it could become.

---

The village hall smelled of wet coats and woodsmoke. Every chair was filled, and more people stood along the walls. Iona had arrived early and still found herself at the back, pressed between a woman she didn't recognize and the radiator.

Angus MacPherson was already on his feet at the front. "We've had stock taken in three different glens this month alone," he said, voice carrying. "And yesterday, whatever it was killed a deer it didn't even eat. That's not survival. That's malice."

Murmurs of agreement. Iona counted heads—forty, maybe more. This was not a village gathering. This was a war council.

"We've heard tales about what lives in these hills," Ewen Bell added, standing beside Angus. "Every one of us grew up knowing there's a reason the Blackwoods keep to their estate. But we've never let them cross our land before."

The name landed like a stone. Iona saw heads turn toward the back of the hall—toward her, though she didn't know why until she realized she had been seen with Lachlan. Of course. There were no secrets in a village this size.

She raised her hand. "Mr. MacPherson. May I speak?"

Angus looked at her, weighing her. He nodded reluctantly.

Iona stepped forward, feeling the weight of forty pairs of eyes. "I examined the carcass yesterday. I've taken tissue samples that I'm sending to a specialist lab in Inverness. Before you organize a hunt—before anyone goes out armed into those hills—let the evidence tell us what we're dealing with."

"Evidence takes weeks," someone called. "Our stock can't wait weeks."

"The creature attacked a deer on Blackwood land," another voice said. "Or near enough. You want us to march onto Blackwood land and demand answers? We've tried that before. They don't answer."

"They answer to no one," Ewen muttered.

Iona's chest tightened. She thought of Lachlan locked in that chamber, of Duncan chained in the dark, of the family that spent a lifetime hiding what they were because of exactly this—the fear in this room, the old bitterness, the longing for a target.

"This isn't about the Blackwoods," she said carefully. "This is about whatever killed that deer. If you hunt the wrong thing, you'll only make things worse."

"And if the wrong thing is a Blackwood?"

The question came from the doorway. Iona turned. Lachlan stood in the open entrance, rain dripping from his coat, and the room went still in a way that was almost physical.

He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. His boots left wet prints on the floorboards. "I heard there was a meeting about the attacks on stock."

Angus crossed his arms. "You heard right."

"Then let me save you the trouble." Lachlan's voice was calm, carrying the authority of a man who had walked these hills his entire life. "The Blackwood family has no interest in your livestock. Whatever is killing your sheep is no creature we keep or harbor."

"Keep?" Ewen laughed bitterly. "You talk like you own the beasts."

"Not the ones you're hunting." Lachlan reached into his coat and pulled out an envelope. "One thousand pounds."

The room went quiet again, differently this time.

"A reward," he said. "For anyone who brings me proof of this creature's identity. Photographs. Tracks. A kill site with reliable evidence. You don't find it, you don't shoot it—you bring me proof, and you'll be paid. More importantly, you'll know what you're dealing with before you raise a gun to it."

Angus stared at the envelope. "And why would you pay to find what's killing our stock?"

"Because I know what my family does and doesn't do," Lachlan said flatly. "This is not us. And I'd rather know the truth than have the village blame us for every lost lamb from here to Glencoe."

The silence stretched. Iona watched the faces shift—some suspicious, some calculating, some visibly thinking about what a thousand pounds would mean. It was not trust. But it was a pause.

"We'll consider it," Angus said at last.

Lachlan set the envelope on the table. "There's nothing to consider. Take the offer or don't. Either way, the terms stand." He turned to Iona. "Dr. MacRae. A word outside?"

She followed him into the cold night, the door closing behind them on the murmur of the meeting.

"That was clever," she said quietly.

"Desperate is more accurate." He ran a hand through his wet hair. "They'll hunt anyway. Some of them. The reward won't stop the trigger-happy ones."

"At least they'll think twice about shooting first."

He gave her a look that held no comfort. "No. They'll just think about collecting the reward afterward. You should be careful. If they learn you've been up on that moor—"

"I know." She shivered. "They already know."

---

She locked the clinic door at half past nine, exhausted. The evening had been drained by talk and tension, and the small lab at the back—really just a converted storage room with a microscope and a few sample coolers—waited for her attention.

She smelled it before she saw it: the sharp copper of blood.

The lab door hung open. Inside, drawers were pulled out, papers scattered across the floor. The sample cooler lay on its side, empty. Her notes were gone.

Iona stood very still, heart pounding, and listened. The clinic was silent. She reached for her phone.

Then she saw the rock on her desk. A river stone, smooth and grey, with paper wrapped around it.

Her hands trembled as she unwrapped it. The note was written in a tight, careful hand on cream-colored paper, the kind fancy stationery used.

*Leave before the next moon.*

She read it three times. Then she walked out of the clinic, through the heavy night air, and drove to the Blackwood gate without stopping to think about what she was doing.

Lachlan met her at the door before she could knock, as if he'd been watching from the window.

"Iona. What's wrong?"

She handed him the note. He read it, and his face went hard.

"This wasn't random." His voice was low. "They knew where your lab was. They knew what you were working on."

"Who, Lachlan? Who knew?"

He looked at the note, then at her, and for the first time since she'd met him, she saw something like fear in his eyes.

"Someone who knows you're close to the truth," he said. "Someone who doesn't want you finding it."