The backyard was small, bordered on all sides by woods. The trees were broken up by narrow walking paths I used to skip down as a kid. Tonight, the paths were lit by the moon’s glow reflecting off the snow covering the ground. I used the light and Ethan’s sharp cries to direct me as I ran.

Trees flew by as I sprinted, and branches scraped along my face and tangled in my hair. I would have kept going, too, lungs screaming, legs aching, but in the end, my chase only led me in a large loop. Eventually, I spilled out of the trees back where I’d started—and ran right into a broad chest.

“Ommph.” I tried jumping backward, terrified I’d just thrown myself into the arms of a killer, but hands came up to squeeze my arms and held me still.

“Whoa, there. It’s just me.” The voice was masculine and rich, and I hated the sound the instant it invaded my head. As if I hadn’t tortured myself enough with the memory of him on the drive over. Or every waking moment, if I was being honest. Now he was here, his presence mingling with my panic. And I hated how badly I wanted to let him save me.

“Let me go,” I demanded, silently calling for Ethan to come and swoop down on my assaulter. The traitor remained airborne and silent.

“Gwen? Are you all right?” The voice came again, and I dragged my gaze upward, past a thick winter coat and shirt that I knew hid solid abs and broad shoulders, still struggling against the iron grip he had on me. But when I caught sight of that familiar set of dark eyes, I shivered at the rush of longing that always threatened to overwhelm me when I saw him.

“Aelwyn . . .” My bottom lip trembled, and before I could stop it, a sob escaped my throat. Desperate and panicked and at a loss for what to do next, I came apart, with tears and more sobs following quickly behind the first.

“I know.” Strong arms came around me, pulling me close, and I clung to him, ashamed of my vulnerable display, but too embarrassed to pull away and let him see my tear-stained face. Not to mention the snot I knew was close behind if I didn’t get my shit together pronto.

But every time I tried to take a deep breath, more tears leaked out and my shoulders only shook harder. Quiet murmurs comforted me, and a gloved hand ran over my neck and back, sending tingles down my spine. His flannel smelled like spilled whiskey and cigarette smoke—and him. There was nothing else in the world that smelled like him. Still, it wasn’t worth this. Because I knew there would be no coming back from the mortification of crying in his arms.

After what had happened inside with Aelwyn and now this, tonight couldn’t have been more of a nightmare. Even so, my heart thudded wildly in my chest at the feel of his arms around me. The truth was Rhys Graywalk hadn’t been in nearly as many of my nightmares as he had my dreams. For that, I hated him.

With that thought in mind, grief and embarrassment turned quickly to rage. But I forced even that aside and somehow managed to conjure something resembling stony indifference. I sniffled one last time, used my jacket sleeve to swipe at my eyes and nose, and then stepped back, eyes downcast.

Overhead, Ethan circled, and I could feel his urge to return to me, but I willed him away with a command that probably came out rude rather than urgent. I wasn’t in the mood to return him to my arm. Not with Rhys watching. He didn’t get to know my secrets. Not anymore.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice choked with the effort of trying to sound casual after all the snot I’d just left on his shirt.

“I came for dinner and then I saw—” He stopped, and I was glad he didn’t finish that sentence. “Gwen,” he said again, this time much softer. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. It’s Ma. She—”

“I know.” He wouldn’t let me finish, and for that I was legitimately grateful. No part of me wanted to describe what I’d seen in the kitchen.

“She was . . . still alive when I got here,” I said, my voice small. I steeled myself and looked up, meeting his eyes. I ignored the concern he gave off. My hands balled into fists, partly from the cold that was finally starting to settle in and partly to keep away the butterflies that batted my rib cage. I hated to look at him. No, that was a lie. I hated to look when he was watching.

“Did she say who did it?” he asked, his words hopeful enough that I felt bad when I shook my head.

“No. She said some other stuff, though.” I frowned. “About you. And about me . . . being special—whatever that means. It didn’t make a lot of sense.”

He nodded, not at all surprised, like I expected he would be. “We can talk about all of that. Come on. The sheriff’s on his way. And it’s cold as shit out here.”

I didn’t question Rhys. Not about warming up inside—although I wasn’t sure I wanted to wait in the kitchen. And not about offering to help me decipher Aelwyn’s last words. Whatever he’d been or done to me, Rhys had always looked out for us ever since we were kids. Three years older than me, he’d come to Aelwyn when he was ten. She’d taken him in without question, just as she’d done for me years earlier. And from the day he arrived, Rhys had been everything to both of us. A friend and playmate for me. A handyman for Aelwyn. He’d moved out at eighteen, but even after things had fallen apart between us, he’d still taken care of her. I was grateful for that. But he didn’t need to know it.

My heart thundered in my chest as I let Rhys lead the way into the house. When he stopped to hold the back door for me, my arm brushed his shirt as I passed, and my insides curled in traitorous enjoyment. Even now, in the middle of this nightmare, my body reacted to him on a chemical level I’d never been able to escape.

The lights were on now. Not just the kitchen, but the hall and a few lamps in the living and dining rooms as well. The pot on the stove had been moved and the burner turned off. Rhys, I assumed. I didn’t bother to ask. Instead, I returned hesitantly to where Aelwyn lay on the floor. The pooled blood was larger than before, but her wounds no longer leaked with it. Her eyes were closed, and she might have looked peaceful even, if not for the blood and the wounds. I dropped to the floor beside her, my eyes filling with tears.

Rhys didn’t speak, nor did he try to force me away, and I sat there, unmoving, until I heard the crunch of tires over the yard as a car pulled up. Doors opened, then closed. I did my best to quiet my own crying and sniffled hard as someone rapped on the front door. Footsteps behind me shuffled out and down the hall. I stayed where I was, listening as Rhys spoke quietly to the sheriff.

“You found her like that?” the sheriff asked when Rhys explained what they were about to walk in on.

“Yes. She was already dead when I got here,” he said, and I flinched at the word. Dead. Yes, she’d already been dead. Because someone had killed her. And I’d let them get away.

“Did you call her other foster child? Gwen?” the sheriff asked.

“She’s here,” Rhys told him, and there was a beat of silence.

“Show me.”

I waited while heavy boots made their way toward me. With a last swipe at my eyes, I looked up as they entered. Rhys came in first and crossed to stand beside me. The sheriff, a broad-shouldered werewolf with a permanent scowl, frowned when he caught sight of me kneeling over Aelwyn’s body.

“Miss Facharro,” the sheriff said, his expression grumpy.

“Sheriff,” I said quietly.

But his eyes were on Rhys, and he looked pissed. “You let her touch the body?”

“She got here first. Damage was already done.”

The sheriff huffed. A beat of silence passed. He stood stiffly with one hand propped on his weapon, and I watched that hand very carefully as he stared back at me. Distrust rolled off him. Nothing new there. No law enforcement official in this town trusted me. Not after—

“I’m going to need you to step away from the bod—from your mother.” Sheriff Kasun moved aside, and I finally saw the second officer. Conall, Kasun’s son, although younger and slightly shorter, was a carbon copy of his father, permanent scowl included. “This is Deputy Conall. You can give him your statement while I conduct an investigation of the scene.”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I turned back to my mother and leaned close, pressing a kiss to her cheek before climbing slowly to my feet. Rhys held out his hand, but I ignored him. I couldn’t risk touching him in front of watchful eyes. Not when I knew my body would react so obviously.

When I was upright, I fastened the deputy with a look that I hoped made him wonder if I really was capable of whatever rumors he’d heard. I didn’t know what those rumors might have been, and I didn’t care. But if he was nervous about me, maybe that would motivate him to resolve this quickly. Behind me, Rhys shifted his weight, and I got the sense he was amused more than impatient. Still, I held the deputy’s uncertain stare. The sheriff cleared his throat, and the deputy blinked, ending our standoff.

“Right. We can just go into the living room,” he muttered, turning on his heel and leading the way.

I followed and was secretly glad when Rhys stayed behind.

In the living room, the deputy took one of the armchairs. I suspected it was a trick to get me to sit, too, but I remained on my feet. Too wired. Too on edge. My thoughts flicked to Ethan somewhere outside, and I frowned. My jacket covered the empty place on my arm, but I was antsy to get him put away again.

“Miss Facharro,” he began, whipping a pad and pen out of his belt loop. “Why don’t you tell me what happened. Start at the beginning.”

So I did.

In a low voice that only shook when I came to the part about discovering my mother bleeding on the floor, I told him everything that had happened. When I’d finished, he was frowning. “You heard a noise, and instead of calling the police, you went racing after it into the dark woods?”

“Of course,” I said. “If I’d waited for you guys, he would have definitely gotten away.”

“He?” His brow rose. “So it was a male?”

“I . . . Well, I can’t be sure, as I didn’t see anyone, but I get a sense that . . . it was.” Actually, it was Ethan who’d gotten that sense, but I couldn’t exactly share the findings from my magical hawk or the fact that I had a familiar thanks to a magical tattoo that the Court of the Sun and the Moon currently knew nothing about.

“A sense,” the deputy repeated in a tone that made me want to tattoo a thousand mosquitos on my skin and aim them all at him.

“That’s right,” I said through clenched teeth.

I braced myself, waiting for him to mock me outright. Instead, he said, “And can you think of anyone that might have wanted to hurt your foster mother?”

“My mother,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“She might have been a foster mother on paper, but she was a mom to me. The best mom anyone could ask for.”

“Right. Of course. Your mother,” he corrected. “Who might have wanted to hurt her?”

“No one,” I said honestly. “She didn’t have any enemies.”

I waited while he wrote something down. When he was finished, he closed his pad and stood, sliding both pad and pen back into his belt loop.

“Thank you for your time,” he said, and then walked out.

I stayed where I was, listening while he returned to the kitchen and assisted the sheriff in collecting evidence. Both of them moved slow as hell, and it was another hour before the coroner and an official evidence team even showed up.

By then, any expectations I’d had about the police actually giving a shit or doing anything productive here tonight to catch a killer had disappeared.

* * *

I stood alone in the dining room until a noise behind me made me turn. Rhys leaned against the doorframe, watching me.

“What?” I asked, but it lacked venom. I was exhausted, and the grief was starting to cloud out the shock that had been fueling me until now. I considered taking a shot from the espresso tattooed on my left forearm, but I didn’t want to risk being seen. All I wanted was solitude—so I could fall apart.

“They’ll find who did this,” he said.

I turned back to the window, watching as a two-man crew loaded my mother’s body into the back of a transport vehicle bound for the medical examiner’s office in town.

“How?” I asked finally.

Rhys took a step forward.

I turned to glare at him, my face already hot with the words on my tongue. “How in the hell will they find her killer? They have no leads, and they didn’t even send someone out to check the perimeter of the property?”

“Sheriff Kasun promised me he already has a team on it,” he said.

“Whatever,” I muttered. So far, Ethan hadn’t been impressed by the wolves he’d seen investigating the property line.

“Gwen—”

“They don’t believe me that someone was out there.”

He took another step. “I do.”

I looked away, back to the window where I saw the paramedics finishing up. The doors were closing now. The engines were turning over. This was it. After tonight, I would never see my mother again. This house would never feel the same. An irrational panic rose, clogging the back of my throat. A part of me wanted to fling open the front door and race out there to stop them. To keep my mother—or what was left of her—here. Even if it didn’t make sense.

I forced my feet to remain where they were. “You believe me,” I said dully. “What good does that do me?”

“A lot, if you’ll let me help.”

I turned to study him, unwilling to watch my mother be carted away from the only home I’d ever known with her. Instead, I put all of my attention and focus on the words Rhys had just spoken. And the ones he hadn’t said out loud.

“Help with what?” I asked, wary and curious as I remembered Aelwyn’s last words. The promise I’d made rang in my ears. I couldn’t go back on that, but damn it, I couldn’t ask Rhys for anything.

“We both know what,” he said and then snorted. “The only mother either of us has ever known was murdered,” he went on, and I flinched but didn’t contradict him. Better to face the truth, no matter how hard, than live in denial. “And I know you’re not going to rest until you figure out who killed her. I think you know that I won’t either. And I can help you. If you let me.”

“I thought that’s what the police are for,” I challenged.

Rhys sighed. “I heard Kasun speculating it could be related to the Bennett girl’s disappearance last year.”

“It could,” I argued, with no real idea why I was suddenly sticking up for that asshat—except that I didn’t want to side with Rhys.

He pinned me with a look, and in the dim lamplight, his eyes flashed. “You don’t believe that for a second. Neither do I.”

“I don’t know—”

“Those woods—out there where I found you earlier—have traces of fae all over them, but it’s unreadable. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s just . . . a ghost. The only real signature that’s even remotely detectable out there is yours. Whoever was here used a glamour to cover his tracks.”

That silenced me. I thought it had just been me. My own signature. Or Ethan was losing his touch, but . . .

“Does the sheriff know that?” I asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“Does he also know that Aelwyn didn’t let fae come to the house?” I asked, a strange sort of uncertainty sending a tingling down my spine. It had been a strange thing, Aelwyn’s rule. She’d never explained it either, but it had been ironclad. No fae on her land. Period. If I hadn’t known her so well, I’d have wondered if she was prejudiced or maybe bitter about something in her past, but she’d been friendly enough with everyone in town, fae included.

I’d never really thought about how strange her rule was until now. Or her unyielding routine of warding the house with fresh herbs and magic every month on the full moon.

Rhys didn’t question it either, though, which only made it all the weirder. “I told him, but . . .”

He trailed off, and I caught his expression before he shifted away. Concerned. Hesitant. It set a warning bell off in my head, and I bit my lip as the pieces fell together. The police weren’t very fond of me, thanks to a childhood spent as a loner and, on occasion, as a troublemaker. I’d broken into a building in high school and set up shop, using it as a temporary tattoo parlor. I’d made a few thousand dollars before they’d shut me down. I’d also made enemies out of Havenwood Falls’ finest.

Apparently, they held a grudge.

I braced myself and asked quietly, “Am I a suspect?”

The beat of silence that followed told me all I needed to know. “Not officially.”

I cursed. A long string of them that would have gotten my mouth washed with soap had I been younger. Aelwyn would have lectured me even now if she’d been here. And suddenly, the emptiness of the house washed over me. I had to get out.

“I have to go,” I said, shoving past Rhys and crossing to the front door. I yanked it open, relieved now to see everyone else had gone, and strode out into the night. Overhead, Ethan circled. Just a few more minutes. I’d have to make a pit stop on the way home so I could put him away before I got back to town.

My truck was still where I’d parked it, but halfway there, I realized the headlights were off. They’d been on when I’d jumped out earlier. Before I could speculate why or who, Rhys was there, holding my keys out.

“I didn’t want your battery to die,” he explained.

“Thanks,” I muttered, swiping the keys from him and heading for the truck.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I paused, one leg already in the truck. “What?”

Rhys pointed to the sky at the same time Ethan did a low loop overhead. I swallowed hard, debating whether to deny it. But what was the point anymore?

I sighed. “How did you know?”

“You shouldn’t leave him loose for too long. Too many risks in this part of the woods,” he said, ignoring my question.

I strode up to him until we were nose to nose in the darkness. Or nose to chin, since he was taller than me.

“How did you know?” I repeated. The temper that rolled off me was a welcome distraction to the grief building in my chest.

His eyes flashed with a knowing that rocked me. It was a look that suggested he knew a lot more about me than I might think. More than I ever told him, that was for sure. And I wondered if maybe my soul was the traitor, opening for him so willingly when he looked at me that way, so that he could just read it all for himself somehow. Like my heart just willingly gave up whatever he wanted from it.

I felt caught by his gaze, like a deer caught by oncoming headlights. One hundred percent of me was certain this was going to end with me wrecked.

“Let me help you, Gwen,” he said softly.

His words were enough to break the spell.

I blinked, shaking my head to clear the fog that made it hard to remember why I didn’t want his help in the first place. But the moment I remembered, my jaw hardened, and I stepped back, no longer trusting myself to stand so close to him.

“Aelwyn might have tied us together, but that common bond is gone now. Go home, Rhys. And leave me alone. For good this time.”

I couldn’t help the sadness that laced my words, but I told myself it was exhaustion and the loss I’d suffered tonight. Rhys didn’t argue, and he didn’t call out to me as I trudged back to my truck. I slid inside and turned the engine over, gunning it out of the yard and onto the main road. Just before the trees obscured my view, I glanced into my rearview. But the darkness was complete, and I saw nothing but shadows of the past in my wake.