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A sharp thud rang out from the living room, and I shot upright in bed. “Is someone else here?”

“No.” Sloane had leapt to her feet so fast, I hadn’t seen her move. “It’s just us.”

We held our breaths, straining our ears, but it didn’t happen again.

“Maybe someone knocked on the door?” I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. “Goldie?”

“Stay put.” Sloane, confident as always in her element, didn’t verify that I obeyed. “I’ll check it out.”

Usually, I was content to sit back and be protected, but I felt drawn to investigate for myself.

As soon as she exited the room, I lowered my toes to the cool oak floor. I rose as quietly as my bedsprings allowed before following her. The closer I got to the source of the noise, the colder I felt. Dread, maybe?

“You little rebel,” Sloane murmured, proving I hadn’t been in danger of sneaking up on her.

“It must have been a one-off.” I walked the living room, checking that no framed photos had fallen. That would have explained the thud. But nothing was missing from its place. “Or maybe an outside noise?”

“Maybe,” she allowed, sounding unconvinced that was the case.

Aiming for the kitchen, I couldn’t hide the rumble in my stomach. “Do you want a snack?—?”

Thump.

I jumped back, certain the sound had come from…under the floor.

“Ana.” Sloane lunged for me. “Get back?—”

The thick tan rug where I had been standing flipped back like a self-folding pancake. As Sloane herded me away, I watched a freaking trapdoor built into my floor—my hundred-year-old oak floors—swing open.

“I scrubbed this place from top to bottom before moving in, and I swear that wasn’t here.”

Which meant it had been added after I was living here.

“We’re getting you out of here.” Sloane herded me toward the kitchen. “We’ll leave through the back.”

“Wait.”

The familiar voice locked us both in place, and we watched as light bloomed, illuminating a small tunnel I had been living above all this time.

And Mercer’s haggard face.

“Anie.” His weathered face crinkled at me. “Thank God you’re all right.”

The relief I probably should have felt at seeing him, at knowing I had a way home, was shattered by the cataclysmic breach of trust he was emerging from. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to save you from these beasts.” He laughed like I was being ridiculous. “Come on, Anie, let’s go.”

A boom shook the floor under my feet, and Mercer growled a curse at someone behind him.

“What was that?” I rushed to the front window. “There’s smoke in the direction of Main Street.”

Not inside the ward, I didn’t think, but down toward the curve leading to Springvale.

“That’s our distraction, and it’s only going to last for so long.” Mercer climbed higher on what must be a ladder, revealing him up to his waist. “We need to get you out of here.”

“Ana?” Sloane, having followed me, watched my back. “What do you want to do?”

“What do you mean what does she want to do ?” Mercer barked a laugh. “She wants to go home.”

“It’s your call.” Sloane cuffed my upper arm. “I’m with you, no matter what you decide.”

Deep down in the pit of my stomach, I knew without asking Mercer that Dad would snatch her away from me. She had defied his orders in letting me choose to come. Even now, with her superior a few yards away, she was giving me the choice that would define the rest of our lives.

Impact rattled the front door to my right, the hinges screaming, and Sloane yanked me away before I got a look at who was responsible. But I knew. I felt him.

“Ana,” Rían bellowed through the door. “Are you okay?”

I had no idea how to answer him. I wasn’t okay. Not by a long shot. But I wasn’t sure he could fix that.

“Sloane, get her over here.” Mercer held out his arms. “Bring her to me.”

Teeth grinding, she fought the compulsion to obey him, buying me precious seconds to choose.

Wood splintered as Rían exploded through the door, his eerie eyes settling on me with naked relief. His chest rumbled when he pivoted toward Mercer, but he didn’t advance on him. He flexed and relaxed his hands, preventing them from forming fists, but stood his ground. Next to me.

I should have felt cornered with his frame blocking the exit, but with him there, I stood my ground too.

“Tell me the truth, Mercer.” I linked hands with Sloane. “Is Carmichael Sartori my father?”

“He raised you.” Mercer darted wary glances at Rían. “Of course he’s your father.”

“Biologically.” I barely choked out the word. “Is he my father?”

“Come with me, and we’ll get this sorted at home. Your dad will answer all of your questions.”

“Except he never does, does he?” I held tight to Sloane. “He talks over and around but never to me.”

Sweat dampened her palms, but she remained beside me, even as tremors shook her inner wolf.

“Answer her,” Rían said quietly, coldly. “Do that, and I’ll forget what I’m seeing.”

“You took Sartori’s daughter,” Mercer snarled. “You’re lucky I only came for the girl.”

“This is my town now.” Rían rolled his shoulders. “And the token that saved your ass last time? That let you come at me as a wolf while I was trapped as a man? It won’t save you now.” He held out a wide hand, as Fayne had earlier, and golden fire bathed his palm. “Tell her what she wants to know.”

Adrenaline dumped into my veins for no good reason as I stared at him, at his flame, and I couldn’t get a single question out.

I had so many, too many, but the roar in my ears was like falling into the ocean, like water was closing over my head, like that hand was the only one strong enough to haul me out and that fire the only thing warm enough to thaw me.

Staring into that glow, I found my voice. “Am I a wolf?”

“The pack has always seen you as one of its own despite?—”

“So, no.” I let myself be mesmerized by the reds and golds. “Am I a latent?”

“Wolf pups can shift at any time, but after puberty it’s rare?—”

“You’re saying I’m not a wolf.” Pain splintered my chest, hurting and yet freeing. “Then what am I?”

“Your father should be the one to?—”

A flicker of inspiration spiraled my brain down a different path, and I asked, “Who left me this house?”

Sloane angled her head toward me, keeping an eye on Mercer, but a frown gathered across her brow.

“Your aunt,” he rushed out, relieved for an easy answer. “Your mother’s sister.”

“Do you mean my birth mother or the one Dad invented for me with a few letters and bedtime stories?”

“Ana…”

“Or did this aunt I never met, the sister of a mother I don’t remember, ever exist?”

Had the mother who wrote those letters been real? Or had she been invented, a hired author with good penmanship and the ability to say the right things to a child starving for acceptance? Just how many lies had he fed me?

“You have to understand?—”

“How long did it take to dig that tunnel before you turned over the keys?” I wiped my damp cheeks, hating I was crying, but I was unraveling.

Everything I thought I knew about myself was being turned on its head.

I didn’t know what to believe—who to believe—or even what I wanted to be true.

“Or are you going to try and convince me the house came with a giant hole in the floor?”

“Brentwood was open territory when you moved here, which made it safe, but it was bound to be claimed eventually. Potentially by an enemy of the Sartoris. The tunnel was a precaution in case we ever had to extract you.” He gestured to Rían. “Clearly, your father was right to build it.”

Click, click, click went the facts as they snicked into place in my brain.

“He knew someone would come for me one day. That’s why he’s always been so paranoid about where I am, what I’m doing, who I’m with.

That’s why he let things spiral out of hand when I couldn’t shift.

” Each word cast grim shadows over my childhood, so why did it feel like sunlight was finally piercing through the clouds?

“He couldn’t afford to have taken me, to have risked so much, with no payoff. ”

“Your father would do anything to keep you safe.”

“Anything but come for me himself?” I coughed up a bitter laugh.

“He knew what the Walshes would tell me, and he didn’t want to face me.

He didn’t want to be where you are now, forced to answer questions I wouldn’t have known to ask if not for the Walshes.

You’re his right hand, but this is bigger than you. You can’t fix this with a lollipop.”

As my attention drifted away from him, Rían closed his fingers over his flame, extinguishing it.

“The choice is yours.” Rían swung his gaze to mine. “I won’t stop you if you want to go.”

When I inherited this house, and Dad gave me his blessing to move to Brentwood, I thought he had finally released me from my cage.

But he had simply replaced the bars with plexiglass.

No. This was more like I had been living behind a two-way mirror, so he could always watch me from the other side while I remained blissfully unaware.

“I…” Tears salting my lips, I held his bright gaze. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”

Beside me, Sloane shored up my courage to face the decision ahead of me.

Another boom vibrated through the floor, and Mercer grimaced as he checked his watch.

“I didn’t want to do it this way.” He hauled himself out of the tunnel in one fluid motion. “But you’re not giving me a choice.” He hurled himself toward me, but Sloane intercepted him, and they went down in a snarling tangle of limbs. “Stand down, girl.”

“Don’t call me girl.” She snapped her teeth at his throat. “And don’t put hands on Ana.”

Balancing on the balls of his feet, Rían was clearly itching to get in on the action. But he remained glued to the same spot, his jaw grinding with the drive to act. His breathing grew choppy, his animal clawing to get out, but he reined himself in. For me.

“Stop.”

Mercer did no such thing, and Sloane couldn’t unless she wanted her throat ripped out.

Nothing human existed in Rían’s voice when he rumbled, “Do you want me to make them stop?”

“I’ll handle it.”