Read Chapter 9: Waking Howls

The rasp of her own breathing was the only sound Iona could hear over the hammering of her heart. She lay rigid in her bed, the quilt pulled to her chin, staring at the ceiling as if it might crack open and reveal the source of the howls that had died away only minutes ago. They had been close. So close that the glass in her windows had vibrated, and something in her bones had answered back.

She counted her heartbeats. One hundred and twelve before she finally threw the covers aside.

Pulling on her waxed jacket over her flannel nightgown, she padded barefoot to the front door. The floorboards were cold and rough against her soles. She eased the latch down, wincing at the click, and stepped out onto the stoop.

The moor was silver under a sky thick with stars. Frost had begun to settle on the grass, and her breath plumed in the still air. She scanned the treeline that bordered her cottage garden, the hawthorn and birch that thinned toward the open bog. Nothing moved.

Then she saw them.

Two eyes, burning amber-gold, at the edge of her garden where the fence sagged into the bracken. The wolf was enormous—larger than any dog she had ever treated, larger than the Highland wolves she had read about that had been hunted to extinction two centuries before. Its coat was black as peat water, and it stood perfectly still, watching her.

Iona did not move. She could feel the weight of its gaze, intelligent and calculating, and her hand crept unconsciously to the locket at her throat. It was warm against her palm. Warmer than it had any right to be in the night air.

The wolf took a single step forward, then stopped. Its head tilted, and for a moment—just a moment—Iona had the absurd thought that it was trying to tell her something. That it knew her. That it had been looking for her.

Then it turned and vanished into the trees, silent as a shadow. She heard nothing—no crack of twig, no rustle of leaves. It was simply gone, as if the moor had swallowed it whole.

She stayed on the stoop until her feet went numb, then went inside and did not sleep.

---

The surgery smelled of antiseptic and wet wool when Gareth arrived the next morning, and Iona was already at her desk, a mug of tea gone cold before her. She had not opened the box of letters. Not yet. But she had made a decision.

"Gareth," she said, not looking up from the appointment book she was pretending to read, "I'm going out for a few hours. Can you handle the afternoon list?"

Gareth shrugged off his coat, his face pinched against the morning chill. He looked at her with narrowed eyes. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I've seen worse," Iona said. "A wolf. In the garden."

Gareth's face went pale. "A what?"

"A wolf," she repeated, standing and reaching for her coat. "Big. Black. Stared at me for a full minute, then ran off."

Gareth opened his mouth, then closed it. He seemed to be choosing his words with care. "You should stay in tonight," he said finally. "Lock your doors. Keep the lights on."

Iona paused, her hand on the latch. "Why?"

Gareth's eyes flicked toward the window, toward the moor beyond. "Because wolves don't come down from the hills this close to the village," he said. "Not unless they're driven out. Or called."

---

She found Lachlan at the estate's stables, brushing down a grey gelding with slow, methodical strokes. He did not look up as she approached, but his hands stilled on the horse's flank.

"You have a wolf problem," Iona said.

Lachlan resumed brushing. "We're in the Highlands. There are always wolves."

"I saw one last night. In my garden." She stepped closer, close enough to see the taut line of his jaw, the shadows beneath his eyes that suggested he had slept as poorly as she had. "It watched me, Lachlan. It stood there and watched me, and I got the feeling—" She stopped, shook her head. "I got the feeling it knew me."

Lachlan set the brush down and turned to face her. His face was carefully blank, but she saw something flicker behind his eyes. Fear. Or something like it.

"You need to stay away from the estate," he said. "I told you that."

"You told me not to come back until after the full moon," Iona said. "That was yesterday. The moon isn't full tonight. But you were leaving anyway, weren't you? You and your mother and your brother. I saw the Land Rovers. I followed you onto the moor, and I watched you vanish."

Lachlan's jaw tightened. He said nothing.

"And Morag MacIntyre," Iona pressed. "She disappeared a year ago on the night of a full moon. The villagers say she was asking questions about your family. And I found her photograph in your house."

Something cracked in Lachlan's composure. He took a step forward, suddenly close enough that she could smell the leather and woodsmoke that clung to him. "I told you," he said, his voice low, "that I would protect you. Do you trust me?"

"Should I?"

The question hung between them. Lachlan's eyes searched hers, and she saw something there—a desperate, aching sincerity that made her chest tighten.

"Yes," he said quietly. "You should."

"Then tell me the truth."

He held her gaze for a long moment. Then he turned and walked toward the back of the stables, unbolting a rear door that led out into the estate's deer park. "Come with me," he said.

---

He led her across the park, past the wall where she had seen the deer—where she had treated the lame hind just days before, under the lie of a follow-up visit. The ground climbed steadily, and soon they were on the open moor, the estate falling away behind them. The wind was sharp and clean, carrying the scent of heather and peat.

They walked for nearly an hour before Lachlan stopped at the base of a rocky outcrop that rose like a shattered tooth from the hillside. Iona had come this way before, on her desperate midnight pursuit of the family's Land Rovers, and she recognized the terrain. It was here that the vehicles had vanished without a trace.

Lachlan moved to the outcrop and pressed his palm against a section of rock that looked no different from any other. There was a soft click, and a section of the hillside swung inward, revealing a dark opening.

Iona stepped closer. The cave mouth was wide enough for a vehicle to pass through, and the ground was worn smooth with use. Tracks—tyre tracks—led into the darkness.

"What is this?" she breathed.

Lachlan did not answer. He stood at the entrance, one hand braced against the rock, staring into the black. "Where they go," he said finally. "When the moon rises."

Iona moved to stand beside him. The cave exhaled a warm breath, underground air that smelled of stone and something else—something metallic, like old blood. She thought of the howls. She thought of the wolf that had watched her with such recognition in its amber eyes.

"What are you, Lachlan?" she asked softly.

He turned to look at her, and for a moment his face was naked in a way she had never seen. "I cannot tell you," he said. "Not yet. But I need your word that you will not speak of this place. That you will not tell anyone what you have seen, or follow me here again."

"You're asking me to trust you," Iona said, "while you give me nothing in return."

"I am asking you to help me keep you alive," he said. His hand came up, hesitated, then touched her cheek. His fingers were warm against her cold skin. "Please, Iona. Give me your word."

She looked into his eyes—grey as the winter sea, flecked with gold she had not noticed before—and made her choice.

"You have my word," she said.

Lachlan exhaled, a breath he seemed to have been holding since she arrived. He dropped his hand and stepped back, sealing the cave entrance with the same trick of pressure and stone. "I will come to you," he said, "after the full moon passes. I will tell you everything."

"Promises," Iona said.

"I know." He smiled, a thin and tired expression. "I have broken too many of them already. But this one I will keep."

They walked back to the estate in silence, and Iona did not look back at the outcrop. But she felt it behind her, a weight at the edge of her awareness, and she knew that the secret was no longer merely Lachlan's to protect.

She would keep her word. But she would not stop asking questions.