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Shadow Doppelgänger?Did Jen cross any changelings who could have used their shadows to control her?

Fae?They have the power to coerce people into doing their bidding—was she manipulated?

––––––––

I exhaled sharply, my grip tightening on the pages.

Rowan, for all his skill at picking apart inconsistencies in the story and evidence, was absolutelyterribleat coming up with plausible theories. Or... maybe that was the point.

A distraction. A smokescreen. A way to throw off suspicion.

Incubus demons were protective by nature. If Jen’s father had sensed that she had a stalker, he would have summoned his shadows to scare Rowan off. But orcs? Orcs were just as territorial—just as possessive—over those they considered theirs... just as strong... just as deadly...

What if Rowan hadn’t just investigated the crime?

What if he had engineered it?

What if he had killed Jen’s parents, manipulated her into believing she was responsible, and staged the entire thing?

But why?

Taking her parents out of the picture made sense if he wanted Jen all to himself, especially if her dad was a protective incubus demon.

But what was the point of engineering it so Jen would do jail time? That went against the very idea of keeping her close. Unless... Did he want to punish her for not returning his infatuation? Did he think that locking her away, isolating her, would make her desperate enough to reach out to him?

He had singled her out the very first night she returned to town...

Rage ignited in my chest, spilling out in thick waves of shadow, twisting violently around me. I should have snapped his neck that night in the bar. If I hadn’t been there, would he have tried to make his move then? I remembered how he reached for her, how he tried to offer her comfort. Was that the start of his plan?

And when I got in the way, did he pivot? Switch to this ridiculous scheme? Did he purposely punch holes in his own story, carefully planting doubts in Jen’s mind, building up to a grand revelation where he could heroically clear her name?

The half-baked, convoluted theories scrawled in his notes—none of them made sense. None of them could be properly investigated, properly proven.

Because that didn’t matter.

What mattered was swooping in at the perfect moment. The moment she felt lost. Felt vulnerable.

The moment she needed a hero.

But Rowan didn’t know that she was already mine. Already claimed.

And I would burn the world to the ground before I let him take her.

Chapter 23. Jen

I didn’t kill my parents.

The thought pulsed through my mind as Devlin recounted the file, each word hammering against my ribs. Relief and grief crashed through me in relentless waves, a storm surging in my chest.

I didn’t kill my parents. But someone else did.