Read Chapter 34: Gratitude Paid

The gathering moon hung low and swollen over the chapel, spilling silver light through the broken stained-glass windows. Iona stood at the altar with the locket warm against her chest, watching the Blackwood pack fill the pews. They came in their human forms, as the ritual demanded, but their eyes held the amber gleam of wolves.

Lachlan stood at the front, pale but upright, one hand pressed to his healing wound. He caught her gaze and gave the faintest nod. The ceremony was meant to bind them to the treaty, to speak the old words that kept the peace. But Iona could not shake the feeling that they were performing a play on a stage that was about to collapse.

She raised her hands and began the invocation she had memorized the night before, her voice carrying through the cold air. The words felt wrong in her mouth, too old, too heavy. But Angus's final confession had taught her something—the rituals were tools, and tools could be wielded by anyone.

Halfway through the second verse, a muffled groan cut through the chanting. Iona paused, scanning the crowd. Dr. MacElroy had been seated in the back pew, attending as a gesture of goodwill. Now he was bent double, one hand clamped to his chest, his face gone the grey of wet slate.

"Douglas!" Iona dropped the ritual scroll and vaulted over the altar rail. The pack murmured behind her, uncertain. She pushed through the row and knelt beside him.

His lips were blue at the edges. "Nitroglycerin," he gasped. "Coat pocket. Can't—"

He couldn't finish the sentence. His eyes rolled back and he toppled sideways, off the pew and onto the stone floor. His breath came in ragged, wet gasps, then stopped.

"Move!" Iona shouted. She grabbed his wrist, checked for a pulse. Nothing. "Lachlan, get the doors open. Someone call the clinic. Fiona, bring my bag—it's by the vestry."

The crowd erupted. Lachlan moved with a wolf's speed despite his wound, shoving pews aside to clear a path to the doors. Iona laid MacElroy flat, tilted his head back, and began compressions. One, two, three. She counted in her head, keeping the rhythm steady, feeling the old man's sternum give beneath her palms.

She thought of her mother then. Strangely, the image came unbidden: a small kitchen in Glasgow, rain streaking the window, and a kindly older doctor sitting across the table, pressing a warm cup of tea into a frightened woman's hands. Dr. MacElroy had been younger then, but the kindness in his eyes was unmistakable. He had saved Iona's mother from a fever that should have killed her. Years later, he had been the first person in this village to treat Iona like a colleague rather than an outsider.

"Stay with me," she muttered between compressions. "You don't get to die on my watch. Not after everything you did for her."

Fiona arrived with the bag. Iona fumbled for the ambu bag and airway kit, fitting the mask over MacElroy's face, directing oxygen where her hands could not be. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she alternated compressions with rescue breaths. The world narrowed to the rhythm of her hands, the hiss of the bag, the cold stone against her knees.

The chapel doors burst open and two men rushed in with a stretcher. Iona never stopped. She climbed onto the stretcher as they lifted him, straddling the old doctor, continuing compressions as they carried him out of the chapel and down the churchyard path to the clinic.

Inside, the clinic was a flurry of activity. She had already diagnosed it—acute myocardial infarction, the artery likely blocked. She called for an IV line, morphine, and made the call to the helicopter service in Inverness. They couldn't fly at night, the dispatcher said. She swore and hung up, then did what she had been trained to do.

She worked on him for what felt like hours. Fiona assisted, her hands steady despite the pallor of her face. The defibrillator charged, and Iona delivered shock after shock until her arms shook with fatigue. Then, just as she was about to call it—just as the quiet voice of reason told her she had done everything possible—the monitor stuttered, then found a rhythm.

"He's back," Fiona whispered. "He's back."

Iona slumped against the wall, watching the steady green line trace its patient arc across the screen. MacElroy's chest rose and fell, shallow but true. She stayed until he stabilized, then sent the others home and pulled a chair to his bedside.

She must have dozed, because the next thing she knew, dawn was grey at the window and MacElroy was watching her with rheumy eyes.

"You look terrible," he said, his voice a rasp.

"You look worse." She leaned forward, checking his vitals. "You scared half the ritual out of the pack. Lachlan's still fielding questions about why the village doctor had a heart attack during a wolf ceremony."

MacElroy managed a weak chuckle. "Couldn't have timed it worse, could I?"

Iona busied herself with his IV line. "You couldn't have picked a worse day, Douglas. The ritual was—it was important. Binding the pack to the treaty. Keeping the peace."

He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer. "I know what you're doing, Iona. You're trying to hold something together that was already coming apart. That ritual isn't a door—it's a lock. And the lock is wearing thin."

"What do you mean?"

He shook his head. The effort seemed to cost him. "I've lived in this village for forty years. I've been the doctor for the Blackwoods and the villagers alike. I've seen things that made me doubt my own eyes. And I know this—the chapel was built on something old. Something that doesn't like being ignored."

Iona thought of the altar, warm beneath her hands. The stones scratching from within. She had tried to tell Lachlan, but he had been too focused on the ritual to listen.

"Rest," she said, forcing a small smile. "We'll worry about the chapel later."

MacElroy caught her wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong. "I saved your mother's life when she was pregnant with you. Did you know that? She was bleeding, high fever, nobody thought she'd make it. I sat with her for three days until the crisis passed."

"You've told me."

He nodded. "And now you've returned the favor. Here I am, alive because a stubborn Glaswegian vet refused to let an old man die." He released her wrist and settled back into his pillows. "Now we are even."

The words hit her harder than she expected. Her mother's face swam before her eyes—her mother, who had died when Iona was young, whose secrets had led her here to Blackwood village. For years, Iona had carried a debt she couldn't repay, a grief she couldn't name. She had come to this village chasing a ghost, and somewhere along the way, the ghost had become a family.

"Even," she repeated, her voice thick.

MacElroy closed his eyes. "Go find your wolf, lass. He's been pacing outside the clinic door for the past hour. Tell him I'm fine, and that he owes me a new bottle of whisky."

Iona laughed despite herself. She squeezed his hand once, then rose and walked to the door.

Lachlan was leaning against the wall in the corridor, his face drawn with exhaustion and worry. When he saw her, some of the tension eased from his shoulders.

"Is he—"

"He'll live." Iona stood close enough to feel the warmth of him. "Thanks to the vault's antidote and a good deal of stubbornness on both our parts."

Lachlan let out a long breath. "Good. The village needs him. We all need him." He hesitated. "Iona, the ritual—we never finished it. The pack is unsettled. And Meghan Ross has sent a messenger asking for a private audience."

The locket was cold against her chest. Iona looked past him, through the window at the pale dawn breaking over the Highland hills. Tomorrow the moon would be full, and the stones below the estate would stir.

"Private audience," she said slowly. "With me? Or with you?"

"With both of us. She says she has knowledge of what lies beneath the chapel. She says we're all in danger, and she's the only one who can tell us how to stop it."

A chill ran down Iona's spine. The altar stones scratched again in her memory, insistent and hungry.

"Then we hear her out," she said. "But we don't trust her. We trust no one until that full moon passes."

Lachlan nodded, his hand finding hers. His fingers were warm, calloused, steady. They walked out of the clinic together, into the grey dawn, toward whatever came next.