Cade caught his reflection in the window and swore silently. His eyes had shifted from their normal forest green to the gold of his wolf, and his hands were clenched into fists to hide the way his nails had begun to extend into claws.
"I should go," he said abruptly, heading for the kitchen door.
"Wait," Lyra called after him. "We're not done talking about this."
Cade paused in the doorway, not trusting himself to turn around. "Yes, we are. For now."
"Like hell we are. You can't just drop a magical destiny bomb on me and then walk away."
"I can and I am." Cade's voice came out as more growl than speech. "Stay away from the seal, Lyra. Whatever you do, don't touch it again until we figure out what we're dealing with."
"Or what?"
Cade turned then, knowing it was a mistake even as he did it. Lyra was standing with her hands on her hips, copper curls escaping from her ponytail and amber eyes blazing with frustrated defiance. She looked magnificent and dangerous and utterly unaware of the effect she was having on his rapidly fraying self-control.
"Or I'll have to stop you," he said quietly.
The threat hung between them like a live wire. Lyra's magic sparked visibly around her fingers, flaring in rhythm with her feelings, and Cade felt his wolf respond in kind. The air in the kitchen grew thick with supernatural tension.
"I'd like to see you try," Lyra said, her voice deadly calm.
Cade's control snapped.
For a heartbeat, he let his wolf surface completely—eyes blazing gold, power radiating from him in waves that made the windows rattle. Lyra took an involuntary step back, her magic flaring in response to the perceived threat.
Then Cade got himself back under control, shoving his wolf down with an effort that left him shaking.
"Stay away from it," he repeated, his voice carefully controlled. "I mean it."
He left before either of them could respond, the front door slamming shut behind him with enough force to rattle the entire inn.
In the kitchen, Nico sipped his coffee and watched Lyra stare at the empty doorway.
"Well," he said finally. "That went about as well as expected."
"Is he always that charming?" Lyra asked, her voice slightly breathless.
"Oh, my dear," Nico said with obvious amusement. "You haven't seen anything yet."
4
CADE
Lyra lasted exactly forty-seven minutes after Cade's dramatic exit before her curiosity won the battle against common sense.
She'd spent those forty-seven minutes pacing the inn's main floor, ostensibly cleaning but mostly working herself into a righteous fury. Who did he think he was, storming into her inherited property and issuing orders like some kind of supernatural dictator? And what was with that whole intimidation display—the golden eyes and the way the windows had rattled when he'd lost his temper?
More importantly, why had her magic responded to his presence like it recognized something familiar?
Nico had made his excuses and left shortly after Cade's departure, but not before pressing a business card into her hand. "For when you inevitably decide to ignore the alpha's very reasonable advice," he'd said with that knowing smile. "Call me before you do anything spectacularly dangerous."
Now, as afternoon shadows stretched across the kitchen floor, Lyra found herself staring at the cellar door with the kind of focus that usually preceded her most spectacular mistakes.
"He said stay away from the rune," she muttered, twisting a copper curl around her finger. "He didn't say anything about not looking at it."
It was a flimsy justification and she knew it, but her magic had been humming restlessly ever since she'd woken up in Cade's arms. The silvery rune on her palm seemed to pulse with its own rhythm, and every instinct she possessed was pulling her back toward the cellar.
Besides, it was her inn. Her grandmother's legacy. If there was some kind of ancient magical artifact buried in the basement, didn't she have a right to understand what she was dealing with?
