Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
NARLA
He looked exactly the same.
That was the horror of it. Years since she’d seen him, and Derren Bale hadn’t aged a day. The same warm smile. The same kind eyes. The same well-dressed confidence that invited trust and promised safety.
The glamour was flawless. It had worked on her for fifteen years—and even now, knowing what lived beneath it, her instincts still reached for the lie.
That was Derren’s gift. That was what made him so dangerous.
“Ms. Wright?” His voice was pleasant, modulated, the perfect pitch of a man making polite conversation with a stranger. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Derren Bale—I deal in rare magical artifacts.”
He extended his hand.
Narla didn’t take it.
Behind the counter, Ember had gone completely still. The owl’s feathers were flat against his body, his amber gaze fixed on Derren with predatory intensity. He knew. The familiar had been there the night Niccolas died, had watched from the shadows as Derren revealed what he truly was.
“Mr. Bale.” Her voice came out even. Calm. The mask she’d perfected over years of practice. “What brings you to Haven Shores?”
“Business, mostly.” He lowered his unshaken hand without acknowledging the slight, his smile never wavering.
“I’ve heard fascinating things about this town.
Cross-species matings. Dragon residents.
And now—” His gaze swept her shelves, lingering on the candles that flickered innocently in their displays.
“—candles that show people their fated mates. Remarkable magic, Ms. Wright.”
The way he said her name. Soft. Familiar. As if they shared secrets.
They did. Just not the kind he was pretending.
“The candles are a side effect of the surge.” Narla moved behind the counter, putting distance and wood between them. Ember shifted closer to her shoulder, a warm pressure of feathered protection. “I can’t control what they reveal.”
“Can’t you?” Derren wandered through the shop, examining displays with casual interest. His fingers trailed along a shelf of votives, and Narla’s magic recoiled from the contact.
Wrong. Everything about him rang false to her power in a way it hadn’t before.
“I’ve studied magical artifacts for decades.
Revelation magic is particularly fascinating.
The ability to strip away lies, to expose hidden truths…
” He glanced at her, and ice flickered behind those warm eyes. “Dangerous, in the wrong hands.”
“My candles aren’t dangerous.”
“No? I heard about a marriage that ended last night. A lioness who discovered her husband wasn’t her fate.” He picked up a candle and turned it in his hands. “Revelations have consequences, Ms. Wright. You should know that better than anyone.”
The threat was delicate. Precise. A blade hidden in velvet.
Narla’s hands trembled beneath the counter, hidden from view. “Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Bale?”
“Just browsing.” He set down the candle and moved closer to the counter. Closer to her. “And meeting the town folk. The innkeeper is very welcoming. Avine, I believe her name is? Charming woman. Very trusting.”
Narla’s blood turned to ice.
He knew. He knew about her friends, her relationships, the people she cared about. Derren made it his business to know everything about his prey before he struck.
“Haven Shores seems full of trusting people.” He leaned against the counter, close enough that she could smell his cologne—expensive, sophisticated, a lie layered over the emptiness beneath.
“I met the most delightful elderly couple at a café this morning. They were visiting from Sunset Harbor. Something about an assisted living facility? The woman mentioned her daughter lived here. A candle maker.” His smile widened. “Small world.”
Her parents.
He’d found her parents.
“Rose and David, wasn’t it? Such a lovely couple.
Your mother has quite the stories about you as a child.
” Derren’s voice was soft, conversational, carrying no hint of threat to anyone who might overhear.
“I promised I’d stop by and say hello next time I’m in the area.
They seemed so pleased to hear you’d made friends in your new town. ”
Narla couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Every protective ward she’d woven around her parents’ facility, every spell she’d embedded in gifts and care packages—could none of it stop him if he decided to enter the facility?
“What do you want?” The words came out barely above a whisper.
“Want?” Derren’s eyebrows rose in perfect innocence.
“I’m just a businessman exploring a charming coastal town.
Nothing more sinister than that.” He straightened, adjusting his perfectly tailored jacket.
“But I do appreciate Haven Shores’s hospitality.
I may stay awhile. There’s so much here worth… observing.”
He moved toward the door, pausing with his hand on the frame.
“Your candles really are remarkable, Ms. Wright. The way they reveal what people are hiding—who they’re meant to be with, who they’re not meant to be with.
” He glanced back at her, and for just an instant, the glamour flickered.
The shadows around him moved wrong, stretching in directions that had nothing to do with the light.
“I wonder what else they might show, given the right motivation.”
The bell chimed as he left.
Narla’s legs gave out.
She caught herself on the counter, knuckles white, chest heaving. Ember launched from his perch and landed on her shoulder, pressing against her neck with urgent warmth.
He was here.
And he knew everything.
Her friends. Her parents. Her candles and their dangerous new power. Everything she’d tried to protect, exposed. Everything she’d tried to escape, standing in her shop with a smile and a threat.
The trembling started in her hands and spread through her entire body. Her vision blurred. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps that didn’t fill her lungs.
The storage room. She needed to get to the storage room. The warded space behind the boxes, where she could fall apart in private, where she could—
The bell chimed again.
“Narla.”
That voice. Low, controlled, carrying an edge of urgency she’d never heard from him before.
“Who was that man?”