CHAPTER 28
JONATHAN
By the time I arrived in Graymore at the end of the week, I was already on edge.
The city felt more hostile to me now. Too sharp, too loud, too sterile.
The air felt thin and overprocessed, stripped of anything that made it real.
Glass and steel clawed at the sky, reflecting themselves over and over like the city couldn’t stand the idea of anything organic surviving unchecked.
I’d always known it was like this; I just hadn’t felt it scrape against my nerves so aggressively before.
I was here for Blanche. My only reason. I told myself that as I crossed the plaza toward Skoll headquarters, ignoring the way my shoulders tightened the closer I got.
I stepped inside the lobby and sensed eyes on me almost immediately…cameras, scanners, security layers I felt more than I could see. Being watched wasn’t new to me. Being catalogued was.
I’d worked for major firms before, stood in my fair share of marble foyers and glass atriums that were meant to impress, but Skoll was different. The scale alone was unimaginable.
The lobby’s ceiling soared so high it vanished into shadow. The walls curved inward like the ribs of something massive and alive. People moved through the space in steady, rigid streams—tiny figures swallowed whole by the architecture.
I felt like I was standing among ants.
No. Worse. Like we were all inside the belly of a whale.
I checked my phone. No message from Blanche yet.
I had arrived early, after all, so I lingered near one of the massive pillars, watching the comings and goings, aware that the guys at the security desk were sending looks my way.
Our plan was to head to an early dinner and I’d spend the weekend with her.
Though now that I was here, in the hungry belly of this city, I was becoming more determined to whisk her back to Juniper Hollow.
I’d drive her back on Sunday evening, before she needed to work on Monday, I reasoned.
That was when I felt it. A presence.
I turned as an impeccably dressed Lycan approached. He had sharp features, dark hair combed back with precision, expression smooth and unreadable. His suit was tailored to the millimeter. Expensive. He didn’t smile.
It was almost as if he’d catalogued me the moment I crossed the threshold of Skoll Plaza, had been tracking my movements since my boots had hit the pavements of Graymore.
“Mr. Wolfe,” he said calmly.
I nodded.
“Please follow me.”
It wasn’t a request.
He didn’t lead me to reception. Instead, he angled toward a discreet corridor set into the far curve of the lobby wall, unmarked and nearly invisible unless you knew where it was.
We entered a private elevator, one with no buttons or even a display panel. The doors slid shut, and the car ushered us up smoothly without sound. I watched my reflection in the polished metal and felt discomfort settle in my gut.
Blanche must have let them know I was coming. I told myself that this was normal. But it didn’t feel normal. I was being treated like a special guest, and I knew I wasn’t.
The elevator opened into a circular executive suite that felt more like a private gallery than an office. Everything was designed to be observed from every angle.
The Lycan gestured me forward with the quiet confidence of someone used to standing close to power. Sharp-eyed, controlled, and appearing less like standard security and more like a handler.
“Please wait here.” He disappeared as quietly as he’d arrived.
I stepped into the center of the room. Polished exotic-stone flooring. Floor-to-ceiling glass. Low, ambient lighting. My attention went straight to the artifacts lining the curved walls…ancient, rare, unmistakably Lycan. They were extraordinary. Clearly someone had curated them with precise intent.
I stepped closer to one of the displays…an ornate iron torc, etched with ancient Lycan symbols. Hard and brutal but remarkably beautiful, it registered something ancient in me, making my blood hum.
“Third age,” a voice said behind me, smooth on the surface but sharp underneath. “Pre-diaspora.”
I hadn’t heard him enter, and that made me uneasy.
Erik Skoll stood a few feet away, hands loosely clasped behind his back, his expression pleasant. He wore an immaculate suit, a predator’s stillness and gaze.
“That piece you’re admiring,” he continued, nodding toward the display, “belonged to our great ancestor and matriarch, the Red Mother, Nyssara—of Lycana’s second bloodline.”
I straightened. “Impressive. Didn’t realize Skoll collected relics.”
“We preserve history.” Erik smiled. “Especially ours. My father searched nearly half a century for that precise item.”
He was laying on the charm.
Erik moved closer, circling. “You’ve done well for yourself, Jonathan. This city remembers you. The Black Wolf of Graymore.” His eyes flicked up, amused. “They still use the name.”
“Do they? I don’t.”
“We may be our fathers’ sons,” Erik went on, “but we are not our fathers.”
Pressure.
My beast recognized the words for what they were, rumbling its discontent. He’d been prowling within me the moment I’d stepped into the elevator.
Erik gestured toward the window, where the city of Graymore was displayed behind the panoramic glass, as if he himself had placed it there as a final finished masterpiece…another in Skoll’s collection.
“Foley was principled. Admirable…but stubborn. The world changed around him while he dug in his heels, mistaking stubbornness for stewardship.” A faint smile touched his mouth. “Me? I prefer momentum toward a better future.”
I hid the surprise of my father’s name rolling off Erik Skoll’s tongue. My beast nearly growled.
“You knew my father?” I asked, trying to keep my tone even and controlled.
What the fuck am I doing here? I couldn’t help but question next.
“I knew of him,” he corrected. “My father knew him.”
“I’m assuming my father isn’t the real subject here?” I asked pointedly.
Erik chuckled softly, as if appreciating my directness. “No, he isn’t. I brought you here to talk about something far more interesting than the past.”
His eyes flicked toward the city beyond the glass.
“The future. Our future.”
And just like that, the seduction was in play. He laid it all out smoothly. It sounded benevolent on the surface, but I could feel the sharpening teeth underneath.
“And that future includes green initiatives,” Erik continued.
“For years, Skoll Corp tried to explore opportunities in the region. Long before I took over. My father believed in doing things properly by working with landowners, respecting the protected status. But Foley made things…difficult. He advocated to neighbors, the local good folk of Juniper Woods,” he said cynically, “to preserve the land, keeping it within the clans. Legacy, he called it.”
I didn’t react to his baiting. Just listened.
“Most of the area was untouchable,” Erik continued, strolling past me as if the conversation were casual. “Environmental protections and all that. I don’t need to bore you with it. But laws change. Communities reassess. Longtime landowners age, and some reconsider what they’ll leave behind.”
Then came a long, measured pause.
“Several already have,” he added.
I felt it then. The quiet implication.
“Our intention is not to target Juniper Woods,” Erik said casually. “Rather, it would be integrated. Run-of-river hydropower. Minimal footprint. Clean, green energy routed where it’s needed most. Graymore’s infrastructure is lacking, and this would stabilize it for decades.”
He turned back to me, expression open. Reasonable. “Sentiment doesn’t have to be the enemy of progress, Jonathan. Stewardship and growth can coexist.”
I’d heard this language for years. In conference rooms. In court filings. In back-channel meetings where lives were reduced to line items and inevitability was used like a weapon.
“And of course,” Erik added, as if it were an afterthought, “you’d be compensated generously.
Beyond market value. I heard rumors you never wanted the land anyway.
Here’s your chance to start new, without the baggage of the past weighing on your shoulders.
With what I’m willing to offer, you can do whatever you want without the shackles of your father’s legacy. ”
He smiled confidently, as if he was telling me everything I wanted to hear. “We’d also handle relocation. Seamlessly. Wherever you like. And”—his eyes sharpened—“a golden opportunity.”
I said nothing, only continued listening.
“We could use someone like you here at Skoll,” he went on. “Your reputation precedes you. You didn’t earn the name ‘Black Wolf of Graymore’ by accident.”
There it was.
“You’d have influence,” Erik said. “Real influence. Not this…self-imposed exile. You could help shape that future I see.”
I knew his type. I’d worked beside them.
Defended them. Watched them justify everything with the same language—efficiency, necessity, progress.
Men who didn’t see land as living or cities as sick or people as anything with a soul…
only an opportunity. They spoke win-win, but what they really meant was I win. You lose. Then I win again.
Graymore ran on decay, and Skoll wanted to feed it fresh blood.
Juniper Woods would bleed so the city could pretend it wasn’t already a corpse.
I never interrupted him. I merely let Erik Skoll finish building his beautiful, hollow case.
When he finally paused and waited for my answer, I already knew there was nothing he could offer me that I wanted.
And everything he wanted from me was exactly why I’d left Graymore behind.
Finally, I replied, “It’s a generous offer…but I’m not for sale. And neither is the land.”
Erik didn’t blink but hesitated for a moment. I had caught him off guard with my polite but blunt answer. An answer that wasn’t quite what he was expecting…or wanted.
“You surprise me,” he finally said.
“Why?” I asked.
He studied me for a long moment. “What exactly are you doing in the woods, Jonathan? Hiding away?”
Now he was getting more desperate.
“You were dangerous once,” Erik continued softly. “Precise. Feared. You’re not a hermit, no matter how much you try to convince yourself of it.”
“I’m not hiding,” I said finally, my tone edging more toward a growl.
A calculated, elongated pause. Then Erik titled his head. “Blanche spoke fondly of the land.”
The room—and my heart—froze.
“She said it was special,” he added, “based off her assessments. She said it had everything we wanted and could still be left mainly protected, virtually untouched.”
I kept my face neutral, but on inside I began to feel uneasy. I felt he was lying. Testing me. To see if I would flinch, and outwardly I didn’t. But inside, acid pooled in my stomach, my thoughts firing a million a minute.
His gaze sharpened, just a fraction. “She’s been very helpful. Her reports were instrumental into getting final board approval.”
The words slid under my skin like a blade. She’d…betrayed me? She’d been spying on me for Erik fucking Skoll this entire time?
He stepped closer to a holo-screen embedded into the wall. “She has a bright future here. You could too.” Then he tapped the screen, which produced faint overlays of maps, boundaries, parcels I recognized as if they were part of me.
Erik stopped on one map in particular. A map he shouldn’t have had. A map of the entirety of Juniper Woods that had been drawn and recorded by own grandfather. A map that was only in my cabin. There was only one in existence, and here it was.
And I knew of one person who’d had the opportunity to find it, the one person in my life who had a connection to Erik Skoll. I’d caught her checking her work email the day she’d left for Graymore on Monday. Had she sent it to him then? While I’d been sleeping?
Blanche had betrayed me.
“Polaris has watched the region for some time,” he said casually. “County data. Local insights. Even a few trusted eyes in the area.”
Polaris Equity. Skoll Corp was behind it, had been all this time.
My jaw tightened.
Erik gaze flicked from the screen to me. “People change when opportunities present themselves,” he said lightly. “Like I said, it’s a golden future.”
“And like I said,” I replied, my beast prowling in my chest, my fist clenching at my side, feeling my claws begin to elongate, “the land isn’t for sale.”
I walked directly into the elevator. Erik’s face was the last thing I saw as the doors slid closed, his expression one of quiet contemplation, another chess piece moving in his head. I needed to get out of here before I did something I regretted.
I didn’t look for Blanche in the lobby.
By the time I reached the doors leading from Skoll, doubt had already crept in. A slow, corrosive burn spreading inward, my instincts warning me not to ignore them again…to not repeat mistakes that had once cost me everything.
But one thought ran on repeat in my mind.
She betrayed me.