Page 14 of The Fated Hunter Wolf

Her smile widened. “People with excellent taste in dangerous young women.”

The words sent ice through my veins. If someone had been talking about me, describing me, giving information to creatures that moved through locked doors and spoke in riddles…

They’ve found me.

Without thinking, I shifted.

My bones cracked and reformed, silver fur rippling across my skin, which burned with magic and fury. My wolf was built for speed and stealth, but right now she felt every inch the enforcer. We launched across the small space, intending to pin this threat and extract information about who’d sent her.

Mariyah didn’t even blink.

One gnarled hand shot up, and a force slammed into me mid-leap. I hit the opposite wall hard enough to crack the wood, my wolf form sprawling among scattered herbs and broken pottery.

“Such enthusiasm,” she observed, sounding genuinely pleased. “Your reputation doesn’t do you justice.”

I shifted back immediately, ignoring the way my ribs protested. “What reputation?”

“The one that’s been growing quite impressively over the past few years. Sable of the Crux bloodline. Protector of the lost ones. The ghost who steals children from cages and leaves no trace behind.” She tilted her head with mock admiration. “Seven successful extractions in eighteen months. Quite the track record.”

My blood turned to ice. She wasn’t just guessing—she had details. Numbers. Information that should have been impossible for outsiders to acquire.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No? Then perhaps you can explain why certain parties have been so interested in your charitable work. Why they’ve beenasking such pointed questions about a young woman with silver magic and protective instincts.”

Each word was like a trap closing around me. If the wrong people knew about my work, if they’d connected me to the missing Crux wolves, then there was no doubt.

The others are in danger.

“What’s happening?” I asked, abandoning any pretense of ignorance.

“I’m here to deliver a message.” She reached into her cloak and withdrew something that made my wolf retreat deeper into my chest. A silver pendant, carved with symbols I recognized but couldn’t read. “I occasionally break bread with those who’ve been watching your career with great interest.”

“I need to know what’s going on. Unless you tell me who exactly is coming for me, I’m not interested in your riddles.”

“Oh, you should be. Especially when they come with such pressing deadlines.”

Instead of explaining, she held out one weathered hand. Palm up. Waiting. She was offering for me to read her.

She knew something of my abilities.

Every instinct I had screamed against touching her, but curiosity won. I needed to know who’d sent her, what they wanted, how much they knew about the network I’d spent years building.

I reached out and grabbed her wrist, pouring my Crux ability into the contact.

Show me who you really are.

My power connected with hers, and suddenly I was falling through layers of consciousness that felt ancient beyond measure. I expected darkness—the kind of bleak emptiness I’d found in the Orion brothers. Instead, I found stars.

Stars.

Cosmic bodies burning in patterns that hurt to perceive directly. Power that existed in the spaces between heartbeats, in the pause between thought and action, in dimensions that mortal minds weren’t designed to process.

What is she?

“Curious little thing,” Mariyah said, and her voice carried harmonics that made my bones vibrate. “Most people don’t survive contact with what I carry.”

I tried to pull away, but her grip tightened with a strength that had nothing to do with her frail appearance.