Read Chapter 30: The Groundskeeper's Ending

The wind through the Blackwood estate carried the smell of rain and something else—old stone, wet earth, and a tension that had settled over the house like a second roof. Iona had spent the evening packing her bag for the parley, her fingers moving through the motions while her mind circled the letter from Meghan, the torn first page of the old vow, the weight of the chain against her collarbone.

She heard the scratching at her window just after midnight.

At first she dismissed it—a branch, a bird, the house settling. But the sound came again, sharper, more deliberate. Like nails on glass. Her hand went to the locket pieces she kept in her pocket now, the broken halves clicking together as she moved toward the window.

The face that met her there was not Lachlan's.

Angus's eyes were wide and wet, his mouth stretched into a grin that showed too much tooth. He pressed one hand against the pane, and Iona saw the dirt caked beneath his nails, the fresh splits in his skin where he'd clawed through earth and stone to reach her. The other hand held a blade—short, curved, the sort of thing a man used for gutting fish or cutting throats.

"Open the window," he said, his voice muffled by the glass but clear enough.

Iona took a step back. The room was on the second floor. He should not have been able to reach her window without a ladder or wings. But Angus had both hands free now, and she saw the fresh welts across his shoulders, the way his shirt had been torn to ribbons.

"You're supposed to be in the cellar," she said.

"The cellar's bored of me." His grin widened. "Open the window, lass. We've business."

She reached for the bell pull beside her bed—the old servant's call, still functional for emergencies. Her fingers had just brushed the cord when Angus shattered the glass with the pommel of his blade.

Iona cried out and stumbled back, shards scattering across the floorboards. Angus climbed through the broken frame with the fluid grace of a man who had spent his whole life in the dark. He moved toward her, blade still low, his eyes tracking the hand she had pressed against her pocket.

"The locket," he said. "Give it to me."

"It's broken," she said. "It's pieces now. It won't do you any good."

His laugh was a low, wet sound. "The Rosses don't need it whole. They need proof it's real. The metal, the chain—they'll take what they can get." He took another step toward her. "I heard about your little ritual. Sensational. Blew up your own house, didn't you? Found some old papers, made a potion, cured my cousin. And all the while you had the key to everything in your pocket and you never once thought to just hand it over."

"Hand it to whom?" Iona's back hit the wall. She was cornered, but she kept her voice steady. "To you? So you could sell out your own family to the pack that's been hunting them?"

Angus's face twisted. "My family. You want to talk about family, vet? I've bled for them for thirty years. I've watched the Blackwood name become a punchline in every pub from Inverness to Perth. And then you arrive, some Glasgow girl with no connections and no history, and suddenly everyone's listening to you. Lachlan's listening to you. Duncan's swallowing your potions like they're holy water."

"That's not why I'm here—"

"Isn't it?" He was closer now. Close enough that she could smell him—the earth, the iron tang of old blood, something musty and deep like the bottom of a well. "You think I didn't notice the second your mother's name came up? This isn't your fight, Iona. It was never your fight. You're a tool. A useful one, but a tool. And tools get put away when they're done."

"Ellis," Iona said, the name coming out before she could stop it. The groundskeeper, the old man who had been killed weeks ago, found in the woods with his throat torn out. The man who had supposedly told Angus about Iona's mother. "Ellis knew something about you, didn't he?"

Angus went very still.

"The change," Iona pressed. She could hear footsteps now—distant, but coming closer. Lachlan must have heard the glass. She just had to keep Angus talking. "That scratch I found in the cellar door. The ones you made when you were supposed to be locked up. You've been breaking free for a while, haven't you? Testing the limits. Ellis must have caught you."

"He caught me with her," Angus said quietly. "In the north meadow. I'd been meeting her for months—a Ross wolf, one of Meghan's outriders. Not for politics. For company. Ellis found us, and he told me he'd have to inform Lachlan. Pack rules, he said. Old laws. He was so bloody righteous about it."

"You killed him." The words felt cold in her mouth. "You killed a man who'd served your family for decades because he caught you having an affair."

"I killed him because he would have destroyed everything." Angus's voice cracked. "The Blackwoods have spent a century trying to rebuild what the Rosses took from us. And if anyone learned I'd been lying with one of them—" He shook his head. "Ellis was old. He was ready to go. It was quick."

"And my mother?" Iona asked. "The ambassador story? Was that true?"

Angus laughed, and this time there was nothing but bitterness in it. "Your mother was a rumor. A convenient one. I spun it to get you off-balance, get you curious enough to dig in the library, find the vault, do all the work I couldn't do myself. I knew there was something under this house. I just needed someone smart enough to find it." He tilted his head. "You walked right into it. Made yourself the bridge between the packs, made yourself indispensable. I was going to wait until after the parley, take the locket when no one was looking, sell it to Meghan for safe passage. But you had to go and break it, had to go and find the serum, had to go and make yourself a hero."

The door burst open.

Lachlan stood in the doorway, hair wild, chest heaving. His eyes went from Iona's face to Angus's blade, and the air in the room seemed to collapse. "Angus. Let her go."

"She's not tied up," Angus said. "She's just in my way."

"Let her go." Lachlan stepped forward. "Whatever this is, whatever you're planning, it ends now."

Angus's grip tightened on the blade. "It ends when I say it ends. I've served your family, Lachlan. I've bled for you. I've killed for you—" His voice cracked on the word. "And you'd choose her? A stranger? Over me?"

"I choose what's right." Lachlan took another step. "And what you did to Ellis wasn't right. What you're doing now isn't right. Put the knife down."

For a moment, Iona thought Angus might actually do it. His shoulders sagged, his head dropped, and the blade wavered. She saw the exhaustion in him, the decades of loyalty twisting into something unrecognizable.

Then the sound came from below—a low, groaning creak from the oldest part of the house, the vault doors shifting underground. Angus's head snapped up. "They're here," he breathed. "The Rosses. They must have followed me." He lunged for Iona.

Lachlan moved faster. He crossed the room in two strides and caught Angus's wrist, the blade inches from Iona's chest. They strained against each other, locked in a silent contest of strength. Iona pressed herself against the wall, watching the two men—cousins, family, both of them shaped by the same curse, the same history.

"Let go," Angus hissed. "Let go and I'll tell them you're innocent. I'll tell them I acted alone."

"I don't believe you," Lachlan said.

The blade turned. Angus twisted, trying to break free, and Lachlan drove him back toward the window. The broken glass crunched under their feet. Angus stumbled on a shard, his grip slipping, and in that instant Lachlan's hand closed around the blade's hilt.

They both went down.

There was a wet, terrible sound. Iona heard it even over her own scream. She saw Angus's eyes go wide, saw his body jerk, and then Lachlan was pulling back, the blade in his hand, red to the hilt.

Angus lay on the floor, blood spreading across the wood. He coughed once, twice, his lips moving.

Lachlan knelt beside him, hands shaking. "Angus. Angus, hold on—"

"It's done," Angus wheezed. His eyes found Iona's face, then Lachlan's. "It was all for the pack. You have to believe me. It was all for the pack."

His body went still.

The house groaned again. Somewhere below, Iona heard the scratch of movement—faster now, more certain. Whoever Angus had let in was already inside.

"That heavy silence," Lachlan said. He didn't look at the body. "Do you hear it?"

Iona nodded.

"Meghan knows about you?" she asked. "The chain? Your blood?"

"I don't know." Lachlan stood, wiping his hand on his trousers. He didn't look at Angus. Not at the body, not at the blood. "But he did. And I'm done lying for my family's ghosts."

Iona stepped forward, her hand brushing his. The ground below them shuddered. Through the broken window, she saw movement in the trees—shapes moving low and fast toward the estate.

"The burial," Lachlan said quietly. "We'll give him peace. But at the parley, I'm telling the truth." He finally looked down at Angus. "All of it. About Ellis. About your mother. About who we really are."

Iona felt the chain press warm against her skin.