Page 7

"That's where you're wrong. The creatures that killed her are still out there."

"So that's what you search for every time you leave the house."

"It's a long story." Mark's feet itched to pace, but he kept himself still, only shifting to put his back to the fire and face Jake straight on. "I should start at the beginning—I should show you."

"Show me?"

Mark hadn't shown anyone what this mansion truly guarded. It wasn't his safety he was so concerned about ... but the treasure hidden in the vault below the structure.

"Come on. You'll see." He polished off the rest of his drink and led Jake through the winding halls of his mansion, through a secret door in the library.

"A long time ago," Mark said, "I was the Alpha of a pack of wolf shifters. We were incredibly tight-knit ... most of us grew up together. We were like brothers."

"Your mate, she was a part of your pack, then?" Jake asked as they walked down a winding set of stairs.

"She was my best friend's sister. I'd loved her for most of my life, but we were never in a relationship for long. Back then, I thought it was manly to play like you didn't care." Mark laughed. "How wrong I was. Stupid. I should have just married her and been done with it. But now ... I live with that regret every day."

"Mark, you still haven't told me what happened."

They came down the stairs and into an imposing metal hallway. At the very end of the hall, the whole wall was the door to a large steel vault. Magic filled the air, covering every inch of the metal, the stone behind and above the walls, covering every possible way that someone could think to break into the vault.

"A week before—" Mark swallowed, "before it happened, one of my pack members, Ryel, caught wind of a hidden treasure hoard in the nearby mountains."

Jake's eyes widened. "Like a dragon hoard?"

"We thought so ... but it was worse. Treasure goblins."

"We're thinking about the same goblins, right?" Jake said. "I thought goblins were at the lowest end of the monster threats out there."

"Regular goblins, yes. A child with a bit of magic could sneeze on a goblin and it would fall over, dead. Treasure goblins are far, far worse. They are vile little creatures. They don't have the brute force or fire of a dragon, but to the unsuspecting, they're far deadlier."

From a hidden panel on the wall, Mark opened up a screen and started disabling the protective wards on the innermost layer of the room one by one.

"The goblins told us the treasure was unprotected and convinced Ryel that it had once belonged to our pack and that we were free to re-claim it. There were old stories in our pack of old wealth and riches so we were easily convinced. Of course the goblins tricked us, but we did not know at the time. Several trips to investigate left us to believe it was safe to take," Mark continued as he disabled the next round of protections. "But we were wrong. We took the treasure back to our pack ... planning how the treasure would change our lives forever. We would expand our little settlement and turn it into a shifter paradise—a safe haven for our kind.

"The treasure did change our lives, just not in the way we expected."

When all of the magical protections were down, Mark passed fingerprint and DNA scans, which allowed him to cross the room without being incinerated. Once in front of the door—which was twice his height—a sensor blinked down at him to scan his irises. After a second, the machine made a pleasing chime.

Finally, Mark input the combination into the safe, and the massive door hissed open under his palm.

At his urging, it swung open. Automatic lights flickered on, and a swarm of dust flew up from mountains of treasure. Gold coins, bars, jewelry. Emeralds, diamonds, piles of every valuable gemstone imaginable. Jewel-encrusted goblets and vases, artifacts from ancient cultures and more.

This door hadn't been opened in over eight years, ever since Mark finished the mansion guarding it and took out enough gold to last him the rest of his life. Looking at it now pained him more than he could describe. His heart clenched,and he wanted to look away, but he forced himself to take it all in.

"Wow ... so this is what you've been hiding down here?" Jake made to step into the vault, reaching for the nearest shiny thing in reach, but Mark immediately grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"Don't touch anything," Mark warned.

"There's literally enough money here to fund, I don't know, whatever the hell you want. If I were you, I'd be sleeping in here instead of in a bed!"

"If you did that, you would be dead." Mark released his hold on Jake's arm. "The treasure is cursed."

Jake and Mark silently took in the mountains of gold and treasure. "I take it has something to do with what happened to your girl."

"The curse turns whoever touches it mad with anger. My pack, we ... in the days after we found the hoard, we did some awful things to each other."

In the end, Mark had been the one to resist the pull of the curse. But only after hurting Ariya, his mate. He told her that he never loved her, that his promise to be with her was a lie. In that moment, he witnessed her heart breaking for the last time. But he already told Jake so much. He couldn't share his whole burden today.