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Grayson is officially a magic user, a brand-new Apprentice to the Guild.

He never imagined a world where he’d be the first Were magic user in hundreds of years. Sure, he’s always been intuitive, and his dreams have never been normal , but he figured that’s all they were—dreams.

Then, in the last few months, they started becoming sharper and more frequent. Not just vague impressions, but vivid glimpses, pieces out of time, a hand reaching for his, the soft press of lips, those blue-glowing eyes.

They’d bled into his art and his designs, an outlet for something that often felt like déjà vu.

The turmoil of the last few days—months, really—has crashed over him like a tsunami, one thing after another, crackling under his skin and pressing at the edges of his vision.

A tension in his muscles, a pressure behind his eyes.

A surge of instincts, anger, protection, dominance had been building just beneath the surface.

When he first heard about his daughters, he’d thought maybe all the changes to his personality were just because of the miracle of them—hoped it was. Until he’d stood before Luminary Nimue in the library and then at her home.

If he is honest with himself, until then, he has been so deep in denial about the changes unraveling inside him that he wouldn’t have been surprised to see Cleopatra float by.

It’s magic. A glowing, free-flowing, massive river of power .

And now that he’s tasted what it means to access magic voluntarily? He cannot get enough. It flows through every cell in his body, and he finds himself drawing on it just to feel it sing.

The world knows from experience that power is addictive—that it can easily be twisted into corruption and evil. And when you add magic to the mix? It becomes a temptation nearly impossible to resist.

It’s something magical adolescents are trained to manage, and at twenty-five, he’s well behind the curve.

He has to be careful, the episode at the hospital showed him exactly what happens when the wolf and magic run rampant.

He will not be responsible for harming Nix just to feed this new, growing addiction.

Grayson doesn’t like to think about what might have happened if they hadn’t found Miranda in the MRI suite—it’s almost as if it was fate.

That is, if fate delivered its messages with a three-million-dollar, explosively destructive calling card.

Huh. Maybe that’s exactly how Fate sent their missives.

Even within such a short time, Nimue has been key in helping Grayson navigate his entry into the magic world.

It could easily have been a shit-show of epic proportions, as magic users who cross state lines must declare their intent beforehand and must either be licensed or travel with a guardian.

Grayson violated so many laws that it could have easily sparked a major jurisdictional dispute between states, especially with the still-smoking MRI machine and the near-altercation in the Archive.

In a generous offer, Luminary Nimue has vouched for his intentions and taken on responsibility for his training.

She has also claimed him as her Apprentice until he can connect with a suitably trained one in Nashville.

Finn—and his copious amounts of research and an incognito browser—says it’s unprecedented.

That someone so well respected would place her reputation and her livelihood on the line to help a stranger is beyond anything Grayson could have expected or hoped for.

Although she says she has no worries—that she can see, has seen—who he is at heart.

Grayson wishes he had the same level of confidence in himself that she does.

As soon as Nimue can arrange it, he’ll have an appointment to see the Guild’s Master of Novices in Clearwater to be officially assessed and set a plan for his training.

Is it possible to be both anxious and excited? It must be, because he’d still been awake in the nest when Jay and Nix had finally come to bed an hour ago, reeking of sadness and pain. As one, the pack had rolled into their grieving leader, siphoning off some of his surplus emotion.

Losing a parent is one of the hardest things, but to lose them both in the most violent of ways, after a lifetime of anger and hatred? That must be even harder. Harder to reconcile the regrets and the grief.

For a moment, Grayson wished he could ease his beloved leader’s pain, as Nix’s emotions fill their conjoined soul, and through him, Grayson can feel Jay’s as well.

He imagines that he might be able to soothe Jay’s pain.

Pulling on The Plain in increments and funneling the cool light back along their bond, Nix hums in relief not long after, and eventually, Jay’s hitching breaths slow until he drifts into an exhausted sleep.

Huh. It might have been a coincidence, but the squeeze to his hand from his soulmate made Grayson think that maybe it wasn’t just his imagination.

With them finally all together, the pack follows, slipping into slumber—some from exhaustion, others lulled by the strange but welcome sense of security that Nimue’s small protections had woven around their temporary den.

***

At first, Grayson thinks it’s a memory—one of those too-bright dreams that start before you’re fully under.

And bright it is.

He’s dreaming of bright sunshine, heat, and the brilliant turquoise of a very expensive swimming pool.

A table sits in front of the hedge-edged flower bed where Grayson stands—bare feet in cool black soil—and on it, there is a tea tray set.

The set includes a single blue-black and gold teacup and a single raisin scone on a plate that matches the cup .

A loud splash pulls his attention away, and Grayson turns his head in time to see a pair of bony feet break the surface of the pool. He wonders if this might be another one of his dreams, but every time he’s had one in the past, his pack has always been present, at least in part.

What had he been thinking of before he’d dreamed of this place? And why is he alone?

Before, his dreams had always turned toward historical settings. Places his mind could recall through time, and he’d thought it was just his active imagination.

But in retrospect, when they’d been at the first safe house and that Arcanas—because that’s what the human man had been—had somehow been looking for them, Grayson had unknowingly been accessing The Plain. The dreams were magical, and no, that’s not hyperbole.

But this feels different.

The younger man hadn’t expected to find Grayson right there but certainly hadn’t passed up the opportunity to try to hold him immobile while Carnell sent reinforcements.

Panicked, Grayson had yanked on his connection to Nix to save himself, nearly drawing too much from The Plain through their soul to do it.

It’s because Grayson doesn’t know how to regulate the flow yet. Nimue had shown him how to metaphysically tie a knot in it. (Ha, yes, she had laughed too.) It wasn’t enough to stem the flood entirely, just slow it down, so he didn’t cause irreparable harm.

So, this feels something like that, but much more controlled, more on purpose. Grayson can feel a trickle of power deep in the center of his brain. Not unlike that moment before the Arcanas had yanked on Grayson’s magic, but also different from any dream he’s had before.

The soil under his toes is cool, as if the plants had been watered recently, and the screen of bushes in front of him is perfectly trimmed. The most recent pruning is clear in the edges of raw wood in front of his nose.

“Aleksander Withers, you bring news?” a voice from his right asks, and there, in the tiniest white swimsuit Grayson has ever had the misfortune to see, is Patrick Carnell, toweling himself off.

His body is lean, with olive-toned skin revealing muscle and sinew over heavy bones.

He’s almost as tall as Rowan, but it’s more than size that makes him move with the confidence of a man used to having everyone anticipate his needs.

Grayson’s heart rate spikes so sharply that he feels woozy, and he sways, nearly crashing into the bushes in front of him. Carelessly, he sticks out a hand to brace himself on the hedge, but it slides through.

Fuck, thank the Goddess. It’s a dream—just a dream.

But the waxy green leaves are cool under his fingertips, too. How is that possible? How can he be here but not here?

Slowing his panicked heart with a deep breath, he watches as Carnell throws a towel over a lounge chair. He doesn’t bat an eyelid in Grayson’s direction, and Grayson is so grateful that he hasn’t somehow teleported from the safe house to wherever Carnell has been hiding in Clearwater.

Teleportation—ha, what is his life now?

How he would explain that to Gideon does not bear thinking about.

As it turns out, Grayson’s relief is short-lived. Carnell’s visitor, Aleksander, is the magic user who had nearly killed both Grayson and Nix with his reckless attempt to restrain them.

He’s almost unrecognizable in such a short time. Where he once appeared young and healthy, that illusion is gone. Now, he’s gaunt—much like his employer—with stringy blond hair and sunken, nearly black eyes.

He’s a walking skeleton, missing two teeth, and when Grayson breathes deeply, he can smell decay beneath his father-in-law’s slimy olive oil scent.

It’s as if something is devouring him from within.

Even Nimue’s descriptions of the effects of drawing on The Plain with evil in your soul couldn’t possibly account for such rapid deterioration. Right?

Is Withers using dark soul magic?

That thought lands like a stone in Grayson’s gut, followed by another: this is not a dream.

There’s no way he could imagine that scent, not from the billions available to a Were’s nose. It’s pure corruption, exactly what Nimue described.

Freezing, Grayson is immobilized for an instant, wondering how he got here. Whether they can see him— smell him—but neither man pays his hiding spot in the bushes any notice.