Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
NARLA
The walk to the sheriff’s station took less time than normal. Narla had timed it, years ago, in those first weeks after arriving in Haven Shores when she’d catalogued every exit route, every safe space, every potential shelter from the monster she knew would eventually find her.
She’d never actually gone inside. Not since that first day, when she’d registered as a new supernatural resident, and their eyes had met across Wyatt’s desk.
The station was brick and coastal weathering, converted from an old firehouse. Deputy Rena Marsh looked up from the front desk as Narla entered, and her nostrils flared slightly—wolf, catching a scent in the air.
“Is Sheriff Gentry available?”
Rena’s gaze flickered to the glass-walled office in the back. “He’s in. Should I—”
“I’ll see myself back.”
Narla didn’t wait for permission. Didn’t knock on the office door either. She pushed it open and stepped inside, closing it behind her, and for a long moment stood there, drinking in the sight of him.
Wyatt had risen from his desk the instant she entered. That gaze—the one she refused to analyze too closely, the one that went molten when his control slipped—swept over her, cataloguing, assessing.
“Trouble.” Not a question. He moved toward her, and her traitorous heart kicked against her ribs.
“He left me this.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out the candle. “On my doorstep. This morning.”
One of her candles. Burnt down to a nub, nothing left but a smear of wax and the ghost of intention. The note was still wrapped around it, neat handwriting that made her skin crawl.
Your flames reveal such interesting truths. I wonder what else they might show?
Wyatt took the candle and note, careful not to touch her fingers. His expression went hard as he read. A muscle jumped in his cheek.
“He knows about the mate revealing.” His voice was carefully controlled, but she heard the edge beneath it. “Exactly what your magic does now.”
“He’s interested.” Narla wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold despite the warmth of the office. “That’s worse than the threats, Wyatt. When Derren becomes interested in a target, he finds a way to use it. To twist it into a weapon.”
“Give me the rest of it.” Wyatt set the candle and note on his desk with deliberate care. “You’ve told me what he did to Niccolas. What he threatened. Now tell me what he is. The part you’ve been afraid to say even to me.”
“You can’t protect me from him.” The words came out sharper than she intended. “He killed Niccolas with a thought. Drove Clara off a cliff without ever touching the wheel. He’s survived for five centuries by eliminating anyone who threatens him, and if you—”
She stopped. Pressed her palms flat on the desk. Forced herself to breathe.
Wyatt crossed the distance between them. His expression had gone to that flat, deadly quiet she’d come to recognize—not pity, not careful distance. Fury. Controlled, leashed, burning white-hot beneath the surface.
“If he decides you’re a threat—” she started.
“Then he’ll find out what a mistake that is.” His voice was barely human.
“You don’t understand what he is. What he can do.”
“Tell me.”
She gave him the parts she’d held back—the Devourers’ biology, the way their glamour rewrote perception at a fundamental level, the harvested patients who had come in for Niccolas’s care and simply vanished.
The dark fire that burned from the inside out, consuming magic rather than flesh.
Her parents’ nursing home ward and the years of crafting protection into every gift she’d sent.
He didn’t interrupt. His body went rigid with a tension that made the air feel electric.
When she finished, silence filled the office.
“Listen to me.” His voice was rough. “I don’t care how old this thing is or how long it’s been hiding. I’m going to find a way to end it.”
“You don’t understand.” Her voice came out hoarse. “Direct magic makes him stronger. He feeds on it, grows more powerful. That’s why the Continental Council couldn’t—”
“I’m not the Continental Council.” His gaze held hers, unblinking. “I’m a predator who’s been denied his prey since you walked into my station. And the man who killed your husband, who threatened your family, who made you live in fear? He just walked into my territory.”
A shiver ran down her spine. Not fear. Something more complicated than that.
“Wyatt—”
“I felt it.” His grip on her shifted, his hand sliding from her cheek to cup her jaw, tilting her face toward his. “At the cabin. When you told me about Niccolas. My panther knew what he meant to you before I did. What Derren took from you.”
“Niccolas wasn’t my fated mate.” She needed him to understand this. “We chose each other. It was different.”
“I know.” His voice dropped. “You loved him anyway. You grieve him. And the bastard who took him from you is going to burn for it.”
His voice carried intensity that made her pulse race. A possessiveness she recognized from the festival, from the sea cliffs, from every charged moment between them since her magic had short-circuited his computer.
He wasn’t just angry about what Derren had done to her.
He was claiming her survival as his own fight.
“We should—” Her voice faltered as his thumb traced her lower lip. “There are things we need to plan. Resources. The dragons might—”
“They will.” He didn’t move away. “Theo’s wolves have eyes on him.” He met her gaze. “We move to the next step.”
“You’ve been thinking about this.”
“Since the moment you told me he killed your husband.” His voice dropped to that edge of growl she’d heard before. “I’ve been thinking about how to destroy him ever since.”
“Why?”
It was a stupid question. She knew why. Had known since the festival, since the candle visions, since the dinner at his cabin where he’d told her about his parents and she’d realized they were two people who’d spent their whole lives braced for their own worst impulses.
But she needed to hear him say it.
Wyatt’s gaze darkened. His hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in the hair that had come loose from her braid.
“You know why.”
“Tell me anyway.”
For a long moment, he just looked at her. The silence stretched, heavy with everything unsaid between them.
Then he kissed her.
Not the desperate collision from the festival. Not the gentle brush in the car. The change in between—deep and claiming and thorough, his mouth moving over hers with a hunger that made her knees threaten to buckle.
She kissed him back. Her fingers curled into his uniform shirt, dragging him closer, and she felt the rumble in his chest before she heard it. A sound that was more panther than man.
When he finally pulled back, they were both breathing hard.
“I’m going to keep you safe.” His voice was rough against her temple. “Not because you can’t protect yourself. Because I want you standing next to me for whatever comes next.”
Her eyes burned with fresh tears, but these tears were different. Lighter.
“Okay.” The word came out barely above a whisper. “Okay.”
Outside the office windows, the afternoon was fading toward evening. Somewhere in Haven Shores, Derren was still wearing his mask, still gathering leverage, still planning whatever horror he’d come here to execute.
But for the first time since Niccolas died, Narla felt less like prey and more like someone building toward a fight.
She felt like the tide that was about to turn.