Chapter 2 Shadows Upstairs
He took another sip of whiskey. “You run this place?”
She nodded. “For three years now.”
“Alone?”
“Mostly.”
He studied her, then gave a faint, unreadable smile. “You’re brave.”
“I’m careful,” she corrected quickly.
The lights flickered again. Thunder rolled closer. Lila glanced toward the ceiling. She knew Mystic Drops well enough to recognize when something wasn’t just weather.
Before she could say anything, the man spoke again. “I’m Aiden.”
The name hit her like a spark to dry leaves. She froze.
Aiden Cross. Alpha of the Crescent Moon Pack.
Every wolf knew that name. Ruthless. Controlled. The kind of Alpha others feared to challenge. What was he doing here?
She didn’t have time to ask.
A crash sound came from upstairs, glass shattering. Her office.
Rye shouted something, but it was drowned out by the scream of wind through the broken window. The lights blinked once, twice, and went out.
The club plunged into darkness.
Screams filled the room. Someone knocked over a table. Lila’s heart raced as she reached under the bar for a flashlight. The beam flicked on, cutting through the chaos.
Aiden was already moving, his voice calm and steady. “Get everyone out. Now.” People scrambled for the exits
Lila reached for her flashlight under the bar. The beam flicked on just in time to catch a shadow moving fast across the upper balcony. Someone was there. Watching.
Then it vanished.
The hair on her neck rose.
When she turned back, Aiden was standing close, too close. The beam of light caught his face, and she stopped breathing. His eyes were glowing faintly in the dark. Not gold. Not brown. Silver.
No wolf had eyes like that. Not unless…
Lila’s mark burned under her skin, sharp and sudden, like it was waking up after years of silence.
Her voice trembled when she finally spoke. “What are you?”
Aiden’s gaze didn’t waver. “Something you shouldn’t remember.”
Lightning split the sky outside, flooding the room with white light for one brief second just long enough for Lila to see the symbol etched into the metal ring on his hand.
It was the same mark Damon once wore.
Then the light vanished, leaving her in the dark with the stranger who shouldn’t have known her name, her pain, or her fate.
The club still smelled like rain. And fear.
Lila’s flashlight beam cut through the dark, slicing over overturned chairs and glittering glass scattered across the floor. Outside, the storm beat against the windows hard enough to make the whole building shudder.
“Everyone’s out!” Rye’s voice echoed from somewhere near the door.
Good. That was one less thing to lose sleep over.
Aiden stood near the entrance, backlit by the glow of the streetlights. His eyes caught the light silver, not gold and for a heartbeat, the air around him felt sharp. Like static waiting to snap.
Lila swallowed. “What are you?”
He didn’t answer. Just tilted his head, listening. “There’s someone upstairs.”
Her gaze darted up to the balcony. The office door hung open, the glass cracked. Wind shoved its way through, scattering papers like snow.
“Stay here,” he said.
She snorted. “Not a chance. That’s my freaking office.”
His jaw flexed, “You don’t listen well.”
“Neither do you.”
For half a second, something like a smile touched his mouth. Then it was gone, and he was already climbing the stairs. Lila followed, her flashlight trembling slightly in her hand.
The higher they went, the colder it got. The music from the club had stopped. Only the wind and her heartbeat filled the silence.
When they reached the landing, she froze. The office had been wrecked,papers everywhere, drawers ripped open, the lock on her cabinet broken clean through her desk overturned. The drawer she kept locked the one with her real identification and pack records was wide open.
“No one even knew about this room,” she said quietly.
Aiden crouched by the window. Fresh claw marks gouged the wooden frame.
“Whoever it was,” he said, “they weren’t human.”
Her stomach twisted. “You think they were after me?”
His eyes met hers. “You already know they were.”
Lila’s throat tightened. She turned away, her hand brushing over the broken drawer that once held everything she’d tried to bury her old pack files, her real name. She had built this life to escape them. To escape him. And yet here it was again, scratching at her walls.
Something silver caught the light. A pendant, half-hidden beneath a pile of papers. She bent down and picked it up. The chain was broken, the charm cracked right through the center a half-moon engraved with a single, familiar sign.
Iron Fang Pack
Her breath left her. “No,” she whispered. “It can’t be.”
Aiden stood, watching her closely. “You recognize it.”
She turned the pendant over in her palm. The design was burned into her memory the mark every Iron Fang wore over their heart. “It’s from my old pack,” she said, voice unsteady.
“The one that cast you out.”
“Something like that.”
Aiden moved closer, his presence quiet but grounding. “Then we find out why they’re here.”
Before she could reply, a loud crash echoed from downstairs again the sound of glass shattering, a table slamming to the ground. Both their heads snapped toward the noise.
Rye’s voice carried through the chaos. “Lila! You need to see this!”
Aiden was already moving, smooth and silent as he descended the stairs. Lila followed, her flashlight beam jerking across walls and shadows. When she reached the floor, she found Rye standing by the entrance, pale and wide-eyed.
The front door was cracked clean through. Rain poured in, pooling over the tile. Carved into the wooden frame were three deep claw marks long, deliberate, perfectly aligned.
“They left a message,” Rye said, his voice almost swallowed by the rain.
Lila stepped forward. The sight of those marks made her pulse thrum hard in her throat. She didn’t need to touch them to understand. She knew the pattern the Iron Fang’s way of saying We found you.
Aiden joined her side, scanning the damage. “They’re marking territory.”
She shook her head, whispering, “Not territory. Me.”
Lightning flashed, painting the room in white for a split second. When it faded, Aiden wasn’t looking at the door anymore. His attention was fixed somewhere past her, his body suddenly still.
She followed his gaze toward the rain-soaked street beyond the broken glass. At first, she saw nothing just the glow of the streetlights flickering against puddles. Then movement.
A shape darted past the edge of the light, fast and low, too smooth to be human. For one breathless second, she caught a glimpse of glowing gold eyes watching them through the storm. Then it was gone.
Aiden’s voice dropped to a low growl. “Someone’s still here.”
Before she could stop him, he moved toward the door, the rain already hitting his shoulders.
Lila grabbed his arm. “You can’t go alone. That’s a trap.”
He looked down at her hand, then back at her face. “You’re not coming with me either,” he said.
But his voice was softer this time like part of him already knew she would follow anyway.