Page 8

SEVEN

MAYA

M aya clutched the pamphlet tighter between her fingers. This paper was evidence of everything her scientific mind had been piecing together these past few weeks. The crescent moon symbol glinted in the cabin's dim light, mocking her previous understanding of the natural world.

"You can keep avoiding the subject," she said, tapping the pamphlet against her palm, "but this right here confirms what I saw on my footage. Wolf shifters. An entire secret society living alongside humans." Her heart raced as she locked eyes with Kieran. "You cannot deny it any longer."

The brothers exchanged loaded side glances. Malcolm leaned casually against the counter while Kieran's jaw flexed, the scar along his temple whitening as his face tightened.

"Look," Maya continued, her scientist's instinct for classification kicking in, "I'm already here against my will. You've already confirmed you were supposed to 'eliminate' me." She made air quotes with her fingers. "So what's the point of keeping secrets now?"

"She's got you there, brother," Malcolm said with a roguish grin.

Kieran shot his brother a withering glare that would have made most people cower. Maya noticed how the silver flecks in his blue eyes seemed to catch the light, almost glowing with an inner fire. Was that part of his wolf nature?

"These pack hierarchies," Maya pressed on, scanning the rebellion literature, "they're fascinating. There are parallels to what I've observed in natural wolf populations, but this is more... complex." She looked up. "It's like evolution took a completely different path."

Kieran stepped closer to her, and Maya felt her breath hitch. Despite the danger he represented, her body responded to his proximity with a traitorously electric awareness.

"What you've stumbled into," he said, his voice lowering to a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through her, "is a world that's existed in secret for centuries. For good reason."

"And what reason would that be?" Maya challenged, refusing to back down even as he towered over her.

"Humans have a habit of destroying what they don't understand," he replied, reaching out to trace the edge of the pamphlet with one finger, deliberately brushing against her hand.

The touch sent warmth cascading up her arm. Maya swallowed hard, fighting to maintain her scientific detachment.

"So there really is a civil rights movement happening among wolf shifters?" she asked, forcing her voice to remain steady. "Against what, exactly? What are these 'outdated traditions'?"

Malcolm snorted. "Where to start? Arranged matings, territory laws, human segregation policies?—"

"Malcolm," Kieran growled in warning.

"What? She's already here. She's already seen the pamphlet." Malcolm gestured expansively. "Besides, it's not like you're planning to follow through with the Council's elimination order, or we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

Maya's brain whirred with new information. "Arranged matings? Human segregation? Your society sounds positively medieval."

"Our ways have kept us safe for centuries," Kieran countered, moving closer still until Maya could feel the heat radiating from his body. "But yes, some traditions need... reconsideration."

The intensity in his gaze made her wonder if there was more to his words than simple politics.

"Well," Malcolm said, pushing away from the counter and breaking the tension, "I should get going. Let you two sort out... whatever this is." He winked at Maya. "Don't let my brother intimidate you. His bark is worse than his bite."

"Debatable," Maya muttered, earning a rare flash of amusement in Kieran's eyes.

"I'll walk my brother out," Kieran said abruptly, his deep voice reverberating through Maya's chest.

The door soon clicked shut behind them, and Maya's heart thundered. Freedom beckoned just steps away. The logical part of her brain screamed to make a break for it—dash into the woods and use her hiking experience to lose them.

But the scientist in her...

"Evidence," she whispered, her eyes darting around the sparse cabin. "I need more evidence."

Maya moved silently across the wooden floor in her socks, her fingers trembling with a mixture of fear and exhilaration. Outside, she could hear the brothers' muffled voices. She had minutes at most.

Her attention snagged on a handwoven rug decorated with intricate geometric patterns that seemed slightly askew from the rest of the meticulously arranged cabin.

Maya dropped to her knees, pushing back her copper hair as she traced the edges of the rug.

Not quite centered under the coffee table. As if it had been moved.

"What are you hiding?" she murmured, pulling back the rug's edge.

The faint outline of a rectangular cut in the floorboards made her pulse quicken. A trapdoor, cleverly disguised but visible to her trained eye for detail. Maya glanced at the window, catching a glimpse of Kieran's broad shoulders as he gestured to his brother.

She wedged her fingernails into the nearly invisible seam and pulled. The door lifted with surprising ease, revealing a small compartment beneath. The musty scent of old paper wafted up.

"Jackpot," Maya breathed.

Inside lay several leather-bound journals, their spines cracked from use, and a stack of papers yellowed with age. With deft fingers, she lifted the topmost journal, its leather cover soft from decades of handling.

The first page bore a date from 1994 and an elegant script: Property of J. Silvercrest.

Maya's eyes widened as she skimmed the entries. Accounts of pack meetings. Territory disputes. Enforcement of human segregation policies.

March 15, 1995 — Council voted unanimously to execute the human witness. Even Maria protested, but traditions must be upheld. Granite Ridge territory remains secure.

Maya's stomach churned. The stark description of a cold-blooded killing was recorded with the same detachment she might use to document wolf feeding patterns.

She flipped further, finding another entry that made her breath catch.

June 7, 2001 — Rebecca refuses the arranged mating to H. Blackwood. Her third refusal. Alpha decreed isolation punishment until the next moon. The old ways must prevail if we are to survive.

Maya grabbed another journal, this one newer. Same handwriting, dated 2010:

The younger generation questions our traditions more openly now. Dangerous talk of human integration circulates among them. Some even suggest letting chosen humans know of our existence. Madness. We cannot allow such rebellion to take root.

Her fingers trembled as she picked up a third book. This handwriting was different—stronger and more decisive. The first entry was dated just five years ago in 2020.

Father grows more tyrannical with each passing year. The methods he uses to quell dissent among the packs sicken me. I've begun documenting the worst abuses. Someday, when I am Alpha, this evidence may help me reform our ways without bloodshed. — K.S.

K.S. Kieran Silvercrest.

The realization hit Maya with physical force. The very man who'd kidnapped her was secretly documenting his father's, the Alpha's, abuses. The same man who'd been tasked with eliminating her was collecting evidence against his own kind's traditions and laws.

Outside, the conversation grew louder. Malcolm was leaving now.

"I should go," Maya heard Malcolm say. "Good luck with your... situation."

"I'm handling it," came Kieran's deep rumble.

Maya frantically gathered the journals, placing them back exactly as she'd found them. Her hand froze on the last one—Kieran's—tempted to keep it as insurance. Instead, she tucked it carefully with the others and lowered the trapdoor.

As she smoothed the rug back into place, her mind raced with new understanding. Kieran wasn't just any wolf shifter. He was heir to the Alpha leadership, and apparently caught between tradition and reform. A man who'd been ordered to kill her had instead hidden her away.

She needed answers. Now.

The dusty journals and their secrets had changed everything. Wind whistled through the cabin's eaves, announcing the coming storm as the front door handle turned.

Maya pushed to her feet, her copper-red hair falling wild around her shoulders as she squared off in the center of the room. Kieran stepped through the doorway, his large frame filling the small space with an energy that made the air suddenly feel too thick to breathe.

"Who's J. Silvercrest?" The words tumbled from her lips before she could think better of it.

Kieran froze, his eyes sharpening to silver points. "Where did you hear that name?"

"I have a PhD in research. I'm good at finding things.

" Maya crossed her arms, refusing to back down despite the dangerous flare in his gaze.

"Are you going to explain this wolf shifter business to me now, or keep pretending I didn't see what I saw on my camera, in that pamphlet, and in those journals? "

Lightning flickered outside, illuminating the hard lines of his face for a split second.

"You went through my things." Not a question. His voice had dropped an octave, vibrating with barely controlled anger.

"You kidnapped me." Maya stepped closer, heat flooding her cheeks. "I'd say we're even."

Kieran closed the distance between them in two long strides, his nostrils flaring as if scenting her defiance. "Those journals are private."

"Execution of human witnesses? Arranged matings?

Isolation punishments?" Maya listed firmly, each offense making her voice rise.

"Are you really upholding this medieval system?

" She paused for a moment, feeling a twinge of fear pulse in her veins.

"So what, if you don't figure something out soon, you're going to kill me to appease your kind's crazy thinking? "

Thunder cracked outside, as if punctuating her accusation.

"If I was going to follow my kind's thinking, you'd already be dead." The quiet certainty in his voice sent ice down her spine. "I'm the one keeping you alive."

"Then tell me the truth. All of it." Maya jabbed a finger against his chest, surprised by her own boldness. "Who are you really? The journals mentioned an Alpha heir. Is that really you?"

Kieran caught her wrist, his touch burning against her skin. "Yes."

The confirmation knocked the wind from her lungs. "So, you're not denying it anymore?"

"What would be the point?" His thumb traced unconscious circles against her pulse. "Yes, I'm a wolf shifter. Yes, I'm the heir to the Silvercrest pack. My father is the current Alpha."

"And J. Silvercrest?"

Something painful flickered across his face. "My uncle John. He died ten years ago in a territorial dispute, right when the Moonfire Rebellion began."

Maya pulled her hand away, needing distance to process this information. "That rebellion from the pamphlet—the civil rights movement."

Kieran nodded, running his large hands through his midnight hair.

"This cabin sits on Granite Ridge territory, not Silvercrest land.

There are four major packs in the Cascade Mountains region—Silvercrest, Granite Ridge, Tidewater, and Shadow Pack.

Each has their own pack laws, but there are some universal shifter laws.

The four packs of the Pacific Northwest's Cascade Territory are governed by the High Council. "

"And your pack laws are..."

"The most traditional." His jaw clenched. "The most rigid."

Lightning flashed again, illuminating the struggle in his eyes. For a moment, Maya glimpsed the weight he carried—heir to a legacy he seemed to both honor and question.

"So, why didn't you kill me in the forest?" Maya asked, the question that had haunted her since she woke up in this cabin. "Your father recommended it, didn't he? And the High Council ordered it, right?"

The wind howled louder outside, tree branches scraping against the cabin's roof like skeletal fingers.

"Because it's wrong." Kieran's voice was quiet but firm. "Killing humans who discover us might have made sense centuries ago, but not now. Not you."

Something in the way he said "you" made Maya's spine tingle. "So what? You're some kind of wolf shifter reformer?"

"It's not that simple." Frustration edged his tone. "These traditions kept us alive for centuries. You can't just tear down a society's foundation without something to replace it."

"Oh please." Maya scoffed, anger bubbling up. "That's what every corrupt system says to avoid change. 'It's complicated.' 'It's for protection.' Meanwhile, you're executing innocent people and forcing arranged matings!"

Kieran surged forward, backing her against the wall, his arms caging her in.

"You think I don't know that?" His voice was a growl now, his eyes flashing with inner light.

"You think I want to be heir to a system that does those things?

That I don't lie awake every night trying to figure out how to change it without starting a civil war? "

Maya's breath hitched as his face lowered toward hers, close enough she could count his eyelashes. The scent of pine and something wild filled her senses.

"Then why hide me away?" she whispered. "What am I exactly to you?"

Thunder boomed directly overhead, rattling the cabin window. The storm had arrived in full force, echoing the tension between them.