Page 10

No. Focus.

I forced my mind away from the memories, falling back on old habits. Assets and threats. The bedroom door was closed, with three other doors leading to who knew where. Second floor, if the gardens below were any indication. The pristine white sheets tangled around my legs meant someone had cleaned me up while I was unconscious.

Nausea rolled through my stomach. They'd stripped away my mud-soaked clothes and dressed me in a soft cotton nightgown. The implication sent bile burning up my already raw throat.

How long had I been out?

The silence pressed in around me, broken only by the gentle tick of a clock somewhere and my own ragged breathing. I strained to hear movement beyond the closed door, any sign of guards or pack members, but there was nothing. That couldn't be right. Xavier never left anything unguarded.

Especially not his property.

Every movement sent daggers of pain through my body, but I couldn't lie here waiting for whatever came next. I untangled myself from the sheets with trembling hands. The nightgown was expensive, the kind of soft that only comes from high-end stores. It hung perfectly on my frame.

The attention to detail was unsettling.

The plush carpet muffled my footsteps as I forced myself to stand. I clutched the ornate bedpost while the room tilted and swayed around me. Dark spots danced at the edges of my vision.

My legs felt like they might give out at any moment.

Before I could take more than two steps toward the nearest door, footsteps approached from the hallway: light, measured—not the heavy tread of pack enforcers. But that meant nothing. Some of their most dangerous members moved like dancers.

My eyes darted around the room. The lamp on the bedside table was too heavy for me in my weakened state. A letter opener gleamed on the distant desk, but I'd never reach it in time.

Maybe the ceramic vase of fresh flowers. If I could just?—

The door opened with a soft click that might as well have been a gunshot for how it made me flinch. I pressed back against the bedpost, trying to ignore how the room spun around me. If they thought I'd go quietly this time, they were in for a surprise.

I'd die before I let them put me back in that grave.

The woman who glided into the room wasn't anyone I recognized from the pack. She moved like flowing water, beauty and contained power, her golden hair catching the morning light. Something about her made my eyes want to slide away. It was as if she were slightly too perfect to look at directly.

Every instinct I had—human and other—whispered danger. Not pack danger though; something older. Something else.

"You're awake." Her voice filled the room like music, soft and melodious. Wrong. She kept her distance, watching me with eyes that seemed to shift colors in the morning light. "How are you feeling?"

I tightened my grip on the bedpost. "Where am I?"

"Somewhere safe." She moved to a chair near the bed, every motion telegraphed as if dealing with a wounded animal. Which, I supposed, I was. "This is one of my properties. I found you in the gardens during last night's storm."

Last night. Just last night. Not days of being unconscious, not enough time for them to track me. I hadn’t noticed a home nearby, but perhaps I missed where I was. It hadn’t seemed like a garden, but I also could barely function by the time I collapsed. I wouldn’t put it past me to have completely missed details like that in the state I was in.

Unless...

"Did anyone else see me?" The words scraped against my raw throat. "Did you call anyone?"

"No." She settled into the chair, smooth as silk. "No police, no hospital. Just me."

I blinked.

"Why?"

A flicker of something crossed her perfect features. Like a ripple disturbing still water. "Because you were hurt and running from something. In my experience, people in those situations rarely want official attention."

Truth or lies?

I searched for tells on her perfect face. Designer clothes draped her frame, clearly expensive but somehow wrong for this time and place. Her manicured hands rested too still in her lap. Money, obviously, but there was something else, and it was something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

"Who are you?" I managed.