Page 15 of Furever Bound (Hollow Oak Mates #7)
SERA
"Not good," she muttered, fumbling for the flashlight app on her phone only to discover the device had died completely despite showing full battery minutes earlier.
The darkness felt different than normal power outages—thicker, more oppressive, charged with the kind of malevolent energy that made her skin crawl with primitive fear.
When she moved toward her window to check for lights elsewhere in town, she discovered that the mist outside had grown so dense it looked solid, like gray walls pressing against the glass.
That's when she heard the sound.
Footsteps on gravel, slow and deliberate, circling the inn with predatory patience. But the rhythm was wrong—too measured, too purposeful, like something that understood hunting but had learned to walk upright recently.
Grimjaw.
The name whispered through her mind with certainty that bypassed rational thought and went straight to instinctive terror. Whatever she had accidentally manifested through her social media documentation, it was here, it was real, and it was looking for her specifically.
A sharp knock on her door made her jump, heart hammering against her ribs.
"Sera?" Elena's voice carried through the wood with professional calm that felt completely wrong given the circumstances. "Are you alright? The power seems to be out."
"I'm fine," Sera called back, though something about Elena's presence during a supernatural crisis felt suspiciously convenient. "Just waiting for the lights to come back on."
"Perhaps we should stick together until the situation resolves," Elena suggested, her tone carrying the kind of helpful concern that set off every warning bell Sera possessed. "Strange things can happen during power outages in towns like this."
The casual reference to "towns like this" confirmed that Elena knew far more about Hollow Oak's supernatural nature than she'd initially revealed, and her arrival during a manifestation crisis felt too coincidental to be accidental.
"I'm okay in here," Sera said, backing away from the door while her mind raced through possibilities. Elena's questions about her abilities, her knowledge of manifestation theory, her convenient presence when Grimjaw seemed to be possibly near.
The footsteps outside had stopped, replaced by a scraping sound like claws on stone that made her blood freeze with recognition. Whatever was circling the inn had found what it was looking for.
"Sera," a voice called from outside her window, and her breath caught as she recognized Maddox's tone. "Don't answer the door. Don't trust Elena. Get away from the windows."
"Maddox?" she called back, relief flooding through her at the sound of his voice.
"It's here," he said, his words barely audible through the glass. "Grimjaw manifested fully. Physical form, active hunting behavior. Elena's not who she claims to be."
The confirmation of her suspicions about Elena combined with the reality of an actual monster stalking outside her window should have triggered complete panic.
Instead, Sera found herself moving with calm purpose that surprised her, gathering her camera equipment and heading for the bathroom—the only room with one small window.
"Sera?" Elena's voice came again, closer to the door now. "I really think we should coordinate our response to whatever's happening out there."
"Response?" Sera called back, noting how Elena's professional concern had shifted to something that sounded more like command authority. "What kind of response?"
"The kind that ensures proper documentation of manifestation phenomena," Elena replied, her academic mask finally dropping to reveal something predatory underneath. "My colleagues are very interested in observing how your abilities interact with fully realized folklore entities."
The clinical language confirmed Sera's worst fears about Elena's true agenda. She wasn't here to help—she was here to study Sera's response to supernatural threats for organizations that viewed psychic abilities as weapons to develop rather than gifts to protect.
"I'm not your research subject," Sera said, locking the bathroom door behind her while sounds of something large moving around the inn suggested Grimjaw was testing the building's defenses.
"Actually, you are," Elena replied. "Whether you cooperate willingly or require more direct persuasion."
The threat disguised as professional interest sent terror racing through Sera's system, especially when the sounds outside suggested she was trapped between a government researcher who wanted to weaponize her abilities and a legendary monster whose existence she'd accidentally enabled.
"Sera." Maddox's voice came from directly outside the bathroom window now, urgent with barely controlled panic. "I need you to listen carefully. Elena's working for a federal task force that monitors supernatural activity. They want to study your manifestation abilities for military applications."
"Military applications?" she whispered, processing the implications.
"Psychic individuals who can influence folklore manifestation could theoretically be trained to create or control supernatural entities as weapons," he explained quickly. "Elena's been documenting your responses since she arrived."
The horrifying possibility that her unconscious abilities could be weaponized made her stomach churn with nausea, especially when Elena's persistent attempts to access her room suggested the documentation phase had ended and acquisition had begun.
"What do I do?" she asked, turning on the ring light she had brought in the bathroom with her and feeling marginally safer as LED illumination pushed back the oppressive darkness.
"Trust me," Maddox said simply. "And get ready to run when I tell you to."
Before she could ask where she was supposed to run in a town surrounded by forest currently occupied by a hunting monster, the sound of splintering wood announced that something had just broken through the inn's front entrance.
Elena's scream of genuine terror suggested that whatever federal resources she'd brought to contain Sera hadn't included adequate protection against the folklore manifestation she'd been so eager to study.
And Grimjaw, it seemed, made no distinction between researchers and research subjects when it came to collecting bones.