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CADE

L yra woke the next morning with the kind of determination that usually preceded either great success or spectacular disaster.

She'd spent the night at Mistwhisper Falls' only bed and breakfast—a charming place called The Moonbeam Lodge run by a cheerful vampire who'd insisted on making her breakfast despite the sun streaming through the windows.

"Supernatural-friendly," she muttered, lacing up her combat boots and surveying the demolition supplies she'd picked up from the local hardware store.

The shop owner, a gruff man with suspiciously pointed ears, had given her a knowing look when she'd requested "the good stuff" and thrown in a pair of work gloves that supposedly repelled negative energy.

The inn looked less intimidating in the morning light, though no less mysterious. Whatever had been making those footsteps yesterday had either left or decided to stay quiet. Lyra had chosen to interpret the silence as a good sign.

She cranked up her music—a playlist titled "Renovation Rampage" that started with vintage rock and escalated to pure chaos—and got to work.

The first order of business was clearing out decades of accumulated furniture and debris.

Most of it was beyond saving, but she found a few gems: an ornate mirror that hummed with protective magic, a set of crystal doorknobs that glowed softly when touched, and a wooden chest filled with what resembled spell components.

"Okay, Grandma Vera," Lyra said, hefting a particularly ugly lamp shaped like a ceramic duck. "I'm starting to get why you and Mom never saw eye to eye."

She'd been working for three hours when she realized her magic was making the job considerably easier than it should have been.

Boxes that should have required two people to move floated obediently behind her like oversized balloons.

Dust and debris swirled themselves into neat piles without her conscious direction.

Even the music seemed to be helping—the bass line was actually vibrating loose nails out of the walls.

"Well, that's about as useful as a chocolate teapot," she said to herself, then paused. Her magic had never been this responsive before. Usually, it took conscious effort and specific intent to make things happen. This felt more like the inn itself was eager to be renovated.

By noon, she'd cleared the entire first floor and was ready to tackle the cellar.

The basement access was through a door behind the kitchen that opened onto steep wooden stairs disappearing into darkness.

The air that drifted up smelled of earth and stone and something else—something that made her magic curl with interest.

"Right then," Lyra said, flicking on her phone's flashlight. "Let's see what mysteries you're hiding down there."

The cellar was larger than she'd expected, with stone walls that looked original to the building and a dirt floor that was surprisingly level.

Shelves lined one wall, holding jars of preserved.

.. things she wasn't ready to identify. Another wall featured what seemed to be a wine rack, though the bottles were covered in dust so thick their labels were illegible.

But it was the floor that caught her attention. Beneath decades of accumulated grime, she could make out the edges of stones that had been deliberately placed. The pattern wasn't random—it looked almost like a mosaic, though she couldn't make out the design through the dirt.

"Huh. Wonder what you're supposed to be."

Lyra grabbed a broom from upstairs and started sweeping.

The more she cleared away, the more intrigued she became.

The stones were different colors—some dark gray, others pale blue, and a few that looked almost silver in the flashlight beam.

They'd been arranged in concentric circles around a central point, with symbols carved into some of them that made her eyes water if she looked too closely.

She was halfway through the cleaning when her broom hit something that definitely wasn't floor.

"What the—" Lyra knelt down and brushed away the remaining dirt with her hands.

Embedded in the center of the stone pattern was something that made her breath catch.

It looked like a piece of obsidian the size of a dinner plate, perfectly round and polished to a mirror shine.

But running through its center was a crack that thrummed with a rhythm all its own.

The crack looked fresh, as if something had struck the stone recently. But that was impossible—the cellar had been sealed when she'd arrived, and the layer of dust suggested no one had been down here in years.

Lyra sat back on her heels, studying the stone. Her magic was practically humming now, drawn to whatever was embedded in the floor. The crack seemed to pulse in rhythm with her heartbeat, and she could swear she heard something—a whisper so faint it might have been her imagination.

"Okay, mystery stone," she said, twirling a burnished curl in absent distraction. "What's your story?"

She reached out tentatively, intending to just touch the edge, see if she could get a sense of what kind of magic she was dealing with. Her grandmother had always said the best way to understand something magical was to listen to what it was trying to tell you.

The moment her palm made contact with the obsidian surface, the world exploded.

Power surged through her like lightning, wild and ancient and utterly uncontrolled.

Her chaos magic, usually as manageable as an enthusiastic puppy, roared to life with the force of a wildfire.

The stone beneath her hand blazed with light that turned the dark cellar bright as noon as though an ancient force stirred beneath the foundation of the inn.

Lyra tried to pull her hand away, but her palm seemed fused to the stone. Magic poured through her in waves that made her teeth ache and her vision blur. She could hear herself screaming, but the sound seemed to come from very far away.

The crack in the stone widened.

Miles away, in the middle of his morning patrol through the forest preserve, Cade Halloway stumbled as if he'd been punched in the chest. His wolf surged to the surface so fast he barely had time to brace himself, every instinct screaming that something was wrong.

Power rolled across the landscape like a shockwave, raising the hair on his arms and sending every animal within a five-mile radius into panicked flight. Birds exploded from the trees in black clouds. Deer crashed through underbrush in their desperation to escape. Even the insects fell silent.

Cade's phone buzzed with emergency calls—pack members checking in, town council members demanding answers he didn't have. But beneath the chaos of voices, he could hear something else. A call that bypassed his ears entirely and hit him somewhere deeper, more primal.

His mate was in danger.

The thought stopped him cold. He didn't have a mate. Had never found one, despite being thirty-two and pack alpha for five years and he has given up. His wolf had shown interest in precisely no one, much to the disappointment of every eligible female in a fifty-mile radius.

But that pull, that desperate need to run toward the source of the magical disturbance, felt like nothing else in his experience. It felt like coming home and losing everything all at once.

"Shit," Cade muttered, already sprinting toward his truck. His wolf wanted to shift and run flat-out, but he could move faster on four wheels than four paws. Besides, if his instincts were right, he was going to need opposable thumbs.

The magical pulse had come from the direction of town, somewhere near the old inn that had been empty since Vera Whitaker's death. But Vera's granddaughter was supposed to arrive this week—Margaret had mentioned something about renovations at the last council meeting.

Cade's truck ate up the miles between the preserve and Founder's Row, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

The magical disturbance was tapering off, but he could still feel it like a low-grade fever in his bones.

Whatever had happened, it was big enough to wake things that should have stayed sleeping.

The inn's front door was standing open, which was either a good sign or a very bad one.

Cade could smell magic in the air—wild and chaotic and tinged with something ancient that made his wolf pace restlessly.

But underneath it was something else, something that made every protective instinct he possessed roar to life.

Honey and copper and summer storms. Female. Powerful. His.

"Hello?" he called, stepping through the front door. "Is anyone here?"

No answer, but the scent trail led toward the kitchen.

Cade followed it, his senses on high alert.

The inn felt different than it had two years ago—more alive, more aware.

Magic clung to the walls like residue, and he could see the ghostly impressions of recent spellwork in the way the dust had been disturbed.

The cellar door was open, and from the basement came a faint glow that definitely wasn't electric lighting.

Cade took the stairs three at a time, following the scent and the pull of something his wolf recognized even if his human brain was still catching up.

The cellar had been transformed—what had once been a storage space was now revealed as something far more significant.

Ancient stones formed a pattern on the floor.

In the center, a woman lay unconscious with her palm pressed against a cracked obsidian stone that pulsed with dying light.

She was beautiful in the way of summer storms—all wild copper curls and golden skin dusted with freckles. Even unconscious, she radiated power that made his wolf want to roll over and show his throat. But it was her scent that nearly brought him to his knees.

Mate. His wolf's voice was certain and smug. Finally.

"Oh, hell," Cade muttered, kneeling beside her and checking for a pulse. Strong and steady, though her skin was burning up. Whatever she'd touched, it had channeled enough power through her to light up half the county. "What did you do?"

He tried to pull her fingers free of the rune, though her palm seemed fused to its surface. The moment he touched her, though, her magic recognized his. The chaotic energy that had been crackling around her like static electricity calmed, drawn to the steady anchor of his wolf.

Her eyes snapped open, amber shot with gold, and focused on his face with surprising clarity.

"You have really nice eyes," she said conversationally, then passed out again.

Cade sat back on his heels, staring down at the unconscious woman who'd just turned his carefully ordered world upside down.

The stone under her palm was definitely a founder's rune—he'd heard enough stories from the elders to recognize one.

But founder's runes were supposed to be dormant, their power bound safely away from anyone who might accidentally trigger them.

Clearly, no one had informed Vera's granddaughter about that particular safety feature.

The rune's glow was fading, but the crack in its surface seemed to glowed with an independent heartbeat. Whatever she'd awakened, it wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon. And if his instincts were right, this was just the beginning.

Cade gathered the unconscious witch into his arms, her magic humming contentedly against his skin, and headed for the stairs. He needed to get her somewhere safe, call the council, and figure out what the hell they were dealing with.

But first, he had to resist the urge to carry her straight to his den and keep her there until he was certain she was safe. His wolf was making increasingly persuasive arguments about the benefits of that particular plan.

"Easy there," he murmured to himself as much as to her. "Let's figure out what she's awakened before we start planning the claiming ceremony."

Though from the way his wolf was already mentally measuring her for a permanent place in their lives, Cade suspected that particular conversation was going to be more negotiation than decision.

Behind them, the cracked rune stone pulsed once more with fading light, and somewhere deep beneath the foundation of the inn, something ancient stirred in its sleep.