Chapter 10 Rory #2
“Malcolm Thorne,” I said, the name tasting bitter. “Shot by an armed officer three days after I left home. Mum rang to tell me. That was the last time we spoke. I didn’t go to the funeral. If there was one—she said they couldn’t even retrieve the body.”
“I’m sorry,” Maxwell said quietly.
I shrugged, feigning indifference. The thing about abusive fathers dying is that you’re supposed to feel something definitive—grief or relief or closure. I felt none of those things. Just… hollow. “He wasn’t exactly father of the year.”
“And your mother?”
I laughed, the sound bitter and twisted.
“Edina Thorne. She’s the alpha now, which is actually progressive by their standards.
Most Highland packs would’ve passed leadership to another male relative.
” Out of the window, the mountains grew more familiar with each passing mile.
“She’s… cold. Proper. All about appearances.
The kind who’d rather die than have anyone think there was something wrong with her children. ”
Maxwell glanced at me briefly. “Like with your ADHD?”
“Like anything that didn’t fit her perfect pack image.” I fiddled with the seatbelt strap. “When the teachers suggested I needed assessment, she told them I just needed more discipline.”
“And your mother knows I’m coming?” he asked, shifting slightly.
“Oh, definitely. Alex would have relayed everything I said, including that I was bringing my boyfriend.” I shot Maxwell a sidelong glance. “She’ll hate that you’re human. She’ll hate that you’re a cop even more. The Thorne Pack doesn’t exactly have warm feelings toward law enforcement.”
“I figured we wouldn’t be telling them I’m a Met detective anyway. Doesn’t really go with the whole undercover thing.”
“Good plan. Wolves and cops don’t mix well.”
“Yet we’re such a convincing couple,” Maxwell said dryly.
I snorted. “Just remember to look besotted. And try not to flinch when I touch you.”
“I don’t flinch when you touch me,” he protested.
“Oh, really?”
I lifted my hand toward his face. Maxwell’s eyes widened, tracking my approaching fingers like they were venomous snakes. He jerked away sharply.
“Ha! See?” I crowed, laughing at his reaction. “You almost dislocated your neck.”
Maxwell scowled, eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead. “I’m driving.”
Before he could protest further, I reached out again—quicker this time—and ruffled his perfectly styled hair. The short, tight coils sprang back immediately after my touch, as if defying my attempt to mess them up.
As my fingers brushed against his scalp, that same weird electric current I’d felt twice before sparked between us—warm, alive. A zing that travelled from my fingertips straight down my spine, settling somewhere deep inside me.
Maxwell sucked in a sharp breath, his whole body tensing.
I yanked my hand back, glaring at him to mask whatever my face or thoughts might have been revealing. “Why does that keep happening? You feel it too, right? Is it when you’re trying to read my mind or something?”
“No,” Maxwell said, his voice tight as he fixed his gaze on the road. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before.” He reached up to touch his head where my fingers had been, his movements stiff and controlled. “It must be a wolf thing.”
I barked out a laugh. “Oi, only I’m allowed to say something’s a ‘wolf thing,’” I said, making air quotes with my fingers. “That’s like me saying your constant brooding is a ‘telepathy thing.’”
Maxwell’s lips twitched, almost forming a smile before he caught himself. “I don’t brood.”
“You’re brooding right now!” I pointed at his furrowed brow. “Look at that face. That’s the face of a man composing sad poetry in his head while it rains outside.”
“I’m concentrating,” he muttered, though his lips curved upward.
I leaned back in my seat, watching him from the corner of my eye. The static between us still lingered in my fingertips, like an echo of something I couldn’t quite understand. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t a “wolf thing” I’d ever experienced before.
But if Maxwell wanted to write it off as supernatural weirdness, that was fine by me.
All too soon, we crested a hill, and my stomach dropped.
“There it is,” I said, pointing ahead to where the vast estate was finally coming into view in the valley below. Thorne Manor stood imposing against the landscape, grey stone walls rising from the mist.
“Jesus,” Maxwell muttered.
“Welcome to my childhood home,” I said, my voice hollow. “A beautiful prison with a spectacular view.”
Maxwell fidgeted with his shirt collar, and I could practically feel the anxiety radiating off him. “So, if we’re concealing my identity, what profession should I say I am? I could say I’m a… teacher? Accountant?”
I glanced over, surprised by his nervousness. Detective Inspector Theodore Maxwell, actually worried about something? I considered his question for a moment, watching the familiar landscape roll by.
“You could easily pass as an accountant,” I teased, earning me a glare through those nerdy glasses I was growing rather fond of.
“Gee, thanks.” He sighed, adjusting his grip on the wheel. “And what about… us? How did we meet?”
I stared at him blankly before realising what he meant. Right. The boyfriend cover story.
“Don’t worry,” I said, a slow grin spreading across my face. “I’ll think up something fun on the spot.”
The look of absolute horror that crossed Maxwell’s face brightened my day.
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
As we descended toward the iron gates, I added, “I’m sorry in advance for any bullshit you have to put up with as my fake boyfriend. These guys are nothing like the city shifters. They’re the sort that still believe humans are beneath them.”
“Wonderful,” Maxwell muttered. “Anything else?”
“Just try not to be alone with any of them,” I said. “They can smell fear.”
Maxwell shot me a look. “Are you trying to make me nervous?”
“Is it working?”
He didn’t answer, just drove forward, toward the ghosts I’d been running from for five years.
The gates remained still, and for one delicious moment, I indulged in fantasy. They’d stay shut. We’d shrug, turn the car around, and head back to London. Sorry, Dev, we tried! Back to my normal life, away from this place and all its painful memories.
Then the gates began to creak open.
“Here we go,” Maxwell murmured, putting the car into gear.
We drove through, the gates closing behind us with an ominous clang. The manor house wasn’t immediately visible through the trees—we still had about half a mile of winding private road ahead.
“The whole estate is surrounded by this bloody wall,” I explained, gesturing to the high stone barrier that ran alongside the road. “Nearly ten feet tall in places. The locals hate it.”
“How big is the property?”
“About two thousand acres. The manor and gardens are at the center, then it’s just miles of forest, hills, streams… perfect territory for wolves.” I sighed. “Perfect place to hide.”
Was Dev right here, within these very walls?
The thought sent a chill through me. I’d asked Felix repeatedly to check over all of the location data we’d gathered from his phone pinging back to life for those few minutes, but apparently we couldn’t obtain a more accurate estimate.
It could have been here, or miles and miles away.
I stared out at the misty landscape, trying to make sense of it all for the millionth time.
Why would Dev be up here, so close to my family’s territory?
Not on holiday, certainly. Dev was a city boy through and through.
He’d complained incessantly about the lack of decent coffee when we’d visited Brighton for a weekend.
The idea of him willingly venturing into the Scottish wilderness was absurd.
He didn’t come willingly.
I knew it in my very core.
The road curved, and suddenly Thorne Manor appeared before us in all its gothic glory. Three storeys of weathered grey stone, mullioned windows, and a slate roof that seemed to touch the clouds. Gargoyles perched at the corners, their faces worn smooth by centuries of Highland rain.
Could Dev be locked within the depths of the manor’s halls? Maybe even the basement, where I’d spent many a night myself?
Maxwell pulled into a small gravel parking area to the side of the house, the tyres crunching as we came to a stop. “Bloody hell,” he whispered. “I can’t quite process that you grew up here. Neither you nor Kit act like you came from this sort of money.”
Before I could make a joke about stealing some crockery to fund buying a new car, movement caught my eye. The massive oak front door swung open, and several figures emerged onto the steps.
Shit. I’d hoped we might slip in unnoticed, maybe have a moment to prepare myself. No such luck.
Please not her, please not her, I silently begged, scanning the faces.
Relief washed through me. No sign of my mother.
Instead, my uncle Alexander stood at the front, his short grey hair and beard neatly trimmed as always.
Beside him was my cousin Isla, her bright ginger hair unmistakable even from this distance.
There was also a man I didn’t recognize—tall, dark-haired, probably in his forties.
As we watched, Alex turned to the stranger, exchanged a few words, and the man nodded before heading back inside.
“That’s my uncle,” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt with suddenly clumsy fingers. “And my cousin.”
“Stay here,” I hissed at Freddy, napping by my feet.
My hand was shaking so badly I had to stuff it into my pocket as I climbed out of the car.
The distance between us and the manor steps seemed impossibly vast—each step forward was torture, the crunch of stones beneath our feet the only sound breaking the Highland silence.
I couldn’t remember how to walk normally.
My shoulders hunched forward of their own accord, my free hand swinging awkwardly at my side.
What did people usually even do with their arms?