Read Chapter 21: After the Storm

The first sound was Duncan's snarl, low and guttural, echoing off the stone walls of the great hall. Iona skidded to a halt on the polished floor, Lachlan a breath behind her. The family had gathered—not in their human forms, but in the uneasy half-shift that spoke of imminent violence. Eilidh, the eldest of the brothers, stood by the fireplace, his hands clenched into claws at his sides.

"They're coming through the west gate," Duncan rasped, his voice a gravelly scrape. His eyes, still tinged with the gold of the recent moon, flicked to Iona with something like gratitude before hardening. "Torches. Pitchforks. The whole bloody village."

"We can hold them off," Fergus, the youngest, said, cracking his knuckles. "We've done it before."

"Aye, and how many of them do we maim before the law gets involved?" Lachlan's voice cut through the tense air. He stepped forward, placing himself between his brothers and the door. "That's a path we don't come back from."

"They'll come back from it," Eilidh growled. "They'll come back with fire and salt and silver if we let them."

Iona's heart hammered against her ribs. The locket, still tucked beneath her shirt, felt cold against her skin. She thought of the villagers—of Mrs. MacKinnon who had brought her shortbread, of the ferryman who'd helped her move her boxes, of the fear that had curdled their kindness into something sharp and ugly.

"Don't let them see you like this," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. "All of you. Shift completely. Be human. Be *boring*."

Lachlan shot her a look. "Iona—"

"They're marching on a house, not a den. They want a monster to point at. Don't give them one." She moved toward the window, peering through the thick glass. The torches were close now, a wavering ribbon of orange light snaking up the drive. "Let me talk to them."

"Absolutely not," Lachlan said, his hand closing around her arm. "They're not in a listening mood."

"They were listening to me at the council meeting. Before—" She gestured vaguely at the doors, at the night, at the impossible truth of it all. "Before this. Let me try."

Duncan's jaw worked. "She has a point. They know her. She's not one of us."

"She is more one of us than she knows," Eilidh muttered under his breath. Lachlan shot him a silencing glare.

The decision was made in a breath. Lachlan nodded once, sharply. "We shift. We stay in the back. If anything looks wrong, we get her out." He turned to Iona, his grey eyes dark with an emotion she couldn't name. "Don't get clever. Just talk."

---

The cold night air bit at Iona's cheeks as she stepped onto the gravel drive, a heavy woollen shawl pulled tight around her shoulders. She left the porch light on behind her, a small pool of warmth that felt absurdly fragile. The villagers had stopped at the edge of the property, a ragged line of men and women clutching rifles, pitchforks, and one ancient shotgun that looked more dangerous to its wielder than anyone else.

Donald Ferguson, the farmer whose prize stag had been the first casualty, stood at the front, his face ruddy with cold and fury. "Miss MacRae," he called. "You shouldn't be here."

"I could say the same to you, Mr. Ferguson." She kept her voice calm, walking forward with her hands visible, palms up. "You've come to kill something. But you're pointing your guns at my patients."

"Your patients?" The man beside him, a wiry sheep farmer named Callum, spat on the ground. "Those Blackwoods are the ones killing our stock."

"They're not." Iona stopped a few feet away, close enough to see the whites of their eyes. "I know what you've heard. I know the rumors. But I've been out to those hills, and I've seen what's left of the deer. That's not a predator's work. That's a sickness."

Donald frowned. "A sickness?"

"A wasting disease. I've been tracking it for a week now." The lie came easily, smoother than she expected. She'd spent her whole career learning to read animals, to diagnose from the smallest signs. It was a short step to diagnosing a fictional outbreak. "The deer are dying from the inside out. Their meat is poisoned. If your dogs have been eating the carcasses, they'll sicken too. And God help anyone who puts one of those in their pot."

A murmur ran through the crowd. The men exchanged uneasy glances.

"She's lying," Callum said, but his voice had lost its edge.

"Ask the estate vet." Iona gestured back toward the house. "I've got the records. I can show you tissue samples I sent to Inverness for testing. It's a prion disease—like mad cow, but in the deer. It's been moving through the herd all autumn."

Donald's rifle lowered a fraction. "Why would the Blackwoods not say anything?"

"Because they're trying to contain it quietly. Do you think they want this spread around? The estate's hunting leases are worth a fortune." She let out a breath, letting her shoulders drop. "You've got every right to be angry. Your livestock, your livelihood—that's on the line. But this isn't a monster problem. It's a veterinary problem. And I need your help, not your guns, to solve it."

The silence stretched. Somewhere behind her, Iona knew, Lachlan and his brothers were hidden in the shadows, ready to intervene. She tried not to think about what would happen if the villagers demanded to search the estate.

Finally, Donald let out a long sigh. "Tissue samples, you say?"

"Come to the clinic tomorrow. I'll walk you through everything." She smiled, a small, tired thing. "I'll even make you tea. We've all been scared enough this week."

One by one, the weapons lowered. There was grumbling, a spate of muttered protests, but the tide had turned. Donald nodded, a jerky motion. "Fine. But if my sheep start dropping again, I'll be back. And I won't be asking politely."

"Understood."

She watched them turn, watched the torches retreat down the drive like a slow-burning comet. Only when the last flicker disappeared over the hill did she let herself breathe.

---

The cave took the rest of the night to clean.

Iona had never seen it before—a cramped, dripping hollow tucked into the cliffs behind the estate's eastern woods. The walls were scorched with soot, the floor scattered with the remnants of what had been a gory feast. The deer carcasses had been dragged here, their bones gnawed clean by Duncan's uncontrolled rages. Fergus worked with a grim efficiency, gathering the remains into burlap sacks. Eilidh scrubbed the stone with a harsh-smelling lye mixture. Duncan stood guard at the entrance, his face a mask of shame.

"There's more under the loose stone," Lachlan said, lifting a slab of granite to reveal a shallow pit. Iona gagged as the smell hit her—a caustic blend of blood and rot. "We should have used the deep caves farther north. He never could resist bringing them here."

Iona said nothing. She helped him haul the pit's contents to the surface, her gloves slick with icy water and old blood. It was brutal work, quiet work, the kind that left your back aching and your mind mercifully blank.

By the time the last trace was washed away and the cave sealed back up with thick tarpaulins and weighted stones, the sky was turning the bruised purple of false dawn. Iona slumped against a birch tree, her breath fogging in the cold air.

"You saved us," Lachlan said quietly. He stood a few feet away, his own hands stained with grime. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. Ferguson will be at my clinic at nine, and I have to invent a prion disease on the spot." She offered a weak smile. "I'll need to look at some reference books."

"I know a thing or two about lying convincingly. Family trait."

"Apparently."

---

The library felt almost sacred after the night's chaos—warm, quiet, steeped in the smell of old paper and wood smoke. Iona sat curled in a leather armchair, a cup of tea cradled in her hands. Lachlan perched across from her on the arm of the couch, his hair damp from the wash he'd taken. The portrait of Eilidh Blackwood watched them from above the fireplace, her painted eyes unreadable.

"I've been thinking," Iona said slowly. "About my mother. About the photograph."

Lachlan's jaw tightened. "I know. I've been avoiding thinking about it."

"Your father had a brother. Ellis." She set the cup down. "He died years before my mother would have come to the Highlands. The man in the photo—I couldn't get a clear look at his face. But the timeline fits."

"Do you think she knew him?"

"No." Iona shook her head. "My mother was a guarded woman. If she'd had a lover here, a secret this big, she could never have kept it fully hidden. She had nightmares, Lachlan. She would wake up crying and never tell me why. But she never mentioned a man. Never mentioned this place. It was like the Highlands didn't exist to her." She paused. "But that doesn't mean the man in the photo isn't your father. Or another relative. There's no way to know without testing."

"Testing," he repeated. "DNA."

"Yes. There's a lab in Inverness that runs ancestry panels. I could send a sample—a scrap of the photograph, a strand of hair from the portrait's backing. But it would take weeks to get results." She looked at him, steady. "And in the meantime, I'm not going to pretend I don't feel what I feel."

Lachlan's eyes softened. "Nor I. But I can't touch you the way I want to until I know for certain. I won't be—" He broke off, rubbing a hand over his face. "I won't be the man who risks that."

"Then we find the truth first." She reached across the space between them, not to touch him, but close enough that he could feel the warmth of her hand hovering near his. "And when we know, we decide what comes next. Together."

He looked at her a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded. "Together."

He rose and moved to the far wall, pressing a panel that Iona had never noticed before. It slid open with a soft hiss, revealing a safe she hadn't known existed. He worked the dial with quick, practiced motions, and the door swung open.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Showing you the full truth," he said. He pulled out a thick, leather-bound ledger, its pages yellowed with age. "All of it. The pack lineage, the treaties, the scandals. Everything Morag hid and my family buried." He set it on the table between them, the weight of it settling like a stone. "If we're going to find out who you are, you need to know what you're part of."

Iona looked down at the ledger. The spine was cracked, the brass clasp tarnished. The Blackwood crest—a crescent moon and a wolfhound—was embossed on the cover. She touched the leather, and for a moment, she felt the echo of her mother's hand, her mother's secrets, her mother's fear.

"Start at the beginning," she said quietly.

Lachlan sat down beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. He opened the first page.

The fire crackled. The portrait watched. And somewhere in the hills, a quiet settled over the land that would not last.