The Wolf (Dominion Hall #12)

Chapter 1

HAZEL

Ialways thought the worst sound in the world was the hum of the office printer.

That endless whine that meant someone—usually me—was running reports no one would ever read.

But now, standing in my grandmother’s inn with the Atlantic wind shoving at the shutters and a silence so deep it makes my ears ring, I know I was wrong.

The worst sound in the world might be nothing.

No clicking keyboards.

No phone calls.

No background chatter about quarterly reviews.

Just the ocean, and the creak of a house too old to remember who owns it.

I hadn’t planned to come here. Not really.

When the lawyer called two weeks ago, I thought it was a mistake. My grandmother and I hadn’t spoken in years. But apparently, she hadn’t forgotten me—not entirely.

According to the will, I was her “sole surviving heir.”

And according to that same will, she’d left me this place—The Bradford Inn—on the condition that I live here and “see it through one full turn of the sun.”

One year.

No selling. No renting. No quitting.

If I broke the clause, the property would revert to “the trust.” The lawyer said it like a warning, his tone clipped like he didn’t fully understand why it was there either.

At first, I laughed.

A bed and breakfast on an island off the South Carolina coast?

I’d never even taken a proper vacation.

I managed human resources for a logistics firm in downtown Chicago. My life revolved around routine and control. Order. I color-coded my inbox. I measured my coffee grounds by weight. I kept my hair in a bun so tight it made my eyes look more alert than I felt.

I wasn’t the type of woman who inherited inns.

And yet here I was, holding a key that looked older than me, staring at six rooms full of ghosts and peeling paint.

“Miss Bradford?”

The voice came from the doorway—soft, Southern, and edged with years of habit.

I turned. A woman in her sixties stood framed by the weak afternoon light, wearing a faded floral dress and a half apron. Her posture was straight, her hair gray and pinned, her expression something between suspicion and sorrow.

“Maude Williamson?” I asked, my voice catching on the name.

She nodded once. “You favor your mother, but you’ve got your grandmother’s eyes.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that.

Compliment? Curse? Both?

“I didn’t expect you’d still be here,” I said.

“Your grandmother wouldn’t have it any other way.” Maude stepped inside, dusted her hands on her apron, and looked around as if assessing what I saw. “It’s not what it was, of course. But it’s still standing.”

Barely.

The inn might have been charming once. It sat on a quiet stretch of Kiawah Island, just far enough from Charleston to feel unreachable.

The wraparound porch leaned a little. The shutters were sun-bleached, the kind of blue that used to be bold.

Ivy had crept up one side, curling under the windowsills like fingers.

Inside, everything smelled faintly of lemon polish and salt. The floors moaned with every step. A few framed photographs hung in the foyer—sepia tones of smiling guests in wide hats, dated decades before I was born.

“She loved this place,” Maude said softly. “Said the sea kept her honest.”

I wanted to ask what that meant, but my throat felt tight. My grandmother had been a distant figure in my childhood—more myth than memory. My mom used to say she was “a different breed.” Independent. Stubborn. The kind of woman who built something from nothing and didn’t apologize for it.

And now she’d left it all to me.

I took a deep breath, forcing my shoulders back. “Can you walk me through everything? The books, the keys, what’s working, what’s not?”

Maude’s lips twitched—approval, maybe. “Of course. Though there ain’t been real guests in nearly two years. Just the odd traveler looking for something cheap, or someone who wants a story to tell.”

I followed her down the narrow hallway. The wallpaper was faded, patterned with vines that seemed to disappear halfway up the wall. A crystal chandelier hung crooked above the stairs, its light refracting in uneven fragments.

“You’ll find the pipes are temperamental,” Maude continued. “And the roof leaks in the west room when it rains. But your grandmother kept it running as best she could.”

“And the money?” I asked before I could stop myself.

Her eyes flicked to mine, sharp for a moment. “There’s some savings in the account. Enough for basics. After that—well, that’s for you to figure out.”

Right. Me.

The woman whose idea of home repair was replacing a lightbulb.

I tried to picture myself here for a year—managing bookings, fixing pipes, keeping company with this quiet, sprawling house and the woman who came with it.

The image didn’t settle. It rattled around like a puzzle piece jammed into the wrong space.

We reached the kitchen. It was big, with wide counters and a farmhouse sink. A single light bulb hummed above the island. Everything was neat but old—worn wooden cabinets, an ancient stove, a calendar stuck on last December.

Maude pulled out a chair for me. “Sit. You look pale.”

I did as I was told, partly because the room tilted a little when I didn’t.

“Long trip,” I muttered.

“You flew into Charleston?”

“Yes. Then rented a car. The bridge to the island nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Her laugh was soft. “Takes getting used to. Out here, the air’s thicker. The world moves slower. City folks find that hard.”

“I’m not sure I’m built for slow,” I admitted.

Maude studied me for a long moment. “Maybe that’s why she left it to you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, either.

Instead, I asked for tea. She set a kettle on the stove and busied herself with familiar motions. Watching her felt like intruding on something sacred—routine born from years of loyalty.

“Did she—” I hesitated. “Was she alone when she passed?”

Maude’s movements slowed. “In her sleep, right upstairs. Peaceful. The doctor said it was her heart.”

I nodded, staring at the chipped teacup she set in front of me. “She didn’t call. Not once.”

“She said you had your own life,” Maude replied gently. “Didn’t want to pull you away from it.”

I almost laughed. If only she knew how small that life was. Work, grocery deliveries, late-night emails. I’d traded meaning for safety years ago. Routine was my religion. Predictability my prayer.

Now I was sitting in a house that groaned with history, waiting for a storm I couldn’t predict.

By evening, the air had turned heavy. The ocean hissed beyond the dunes, and rain gathered on the horizon like a dark promise.

I carried my suitcase upstairs. The steps whined beneath me. The second floor smelled faintly of cedar and something sweet—lavender, maybe, or dust pretending to be lavender.

My grandmother’s room sat at the end of the hall. I didn’t open the door. I couldn’t yet.

Instead, I chose a smaller room overlooking the water. The bedspread was faded rose. A mirror leaned crookedly on the dresser, reflecting my outline in fractured light.

I set down my bag, then opened the window. The air that rushed in was humid and alive, full of salt and something feral—like the island itself was breathing around me.

I should have felt peaceful.

I didn’t.

The quiet pressed too close. Every creak made my pulse spike. I’d spent years surrounded by noise—cars, elevators, the hum of office lighting. Silence felt like exposure.

Somewhere outside, a bird shrieked. Or maybe it wasn’t a bird.

I told myself not to be ridiculous.

Still, I locked the window before stepping back.

Later, Maude brought soup and biscuits to my room. “You’ll get used to the nights,” she said when I flinched at a gust of wind. “The island talks when it rains.”

I smiled weakly. “I’m not sure it’s saying nice things.”

That earned a faint laugh.

Maude set the tray on the bedside table and smoothed the edge of the blanket like she had done it a thousand times. “There’s more downstairs if you’re hungry later. I’ll be in the little apartment off the back porch. Knock if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” I said, and meant it.

When she left, silence dropped back over the room like a heavy curtain. I sat on the edge of the bed with the bowl in my lap, listening to the rain begin its soft, suspicious patter on the roof.

I ate because it kept my hands occupied.

Because the warmth filled a hollow I didn’t want to name.

Because if I kept moving from one small task to the next—spoon, swallow, breathe—I could pretend I wasn’t terrified of this house, this life, this version of me that had stepped off a plane and into someone else’s story.

When the spoon scraped porcelain, there was nothing left to do but think. Which I hate.

My brain likes lists and boxes and things with labels. Feelings don’t come with SKUs. They don’t sort nicely into color-coded folders. They spill.

I set the bowl aside and stared at my phone face-down on the nightstand.

I hadn’t turned it off airplane mode. No push notifications.

No emails. No dating apps pinging to ask if I was still “looking for something serious” in a five-mile radius of my office because, apparently, the algorithm had deduced that I’m only attracted to men who own three button-downs and a sense of superiority.

I used to say I wanted to meet someone. The right someone.

But wanting requires deviation, and I don’t deviate.

Not from my commute, not from my workout, not from the carefully organized orbit of my life.

A man would have to throw himself across the hood of my car at a red light, palms flat to the glass, mouth forming my name, for me to actually change lanes.

I huffed out a laugh at that—short, humorless. Here, there were no red lights. Just a one-lane road, a long, dark drive, and a house that remembered everyone but me.

The truth was uglier: I’m good at people in theory.

I understand how they fit inside organizations.

I can read the fine print of conflict and coach it toward resolution.

I know how to say the right thing so the room breathes again.

I’m less good at people in practice. When they lean too close.

When they ask what I want and wait for the answer.

What do I want?

My cheeks warmed even alone. I knew what I wanted in a technical sense—what skin against skin could do to a careful mind, how the right kind of man could make control feel like a suggestion.

Not nice, not gentle. He wouldn’t ask for a spreadsheet.

He’d ask for me. With his mouth. With his hands.

With a look that said obedience and undoing could be the same thing, if I let them.

I closed my eyes and pressed my knuckles to my sternum like I could calm the flutter there. Ridiculous. This was not Chicago with its crowded bars and soft lighting designed to make everyone look more interested. This was an island. The only men nearby were fishermen and golfers.

The thought should have cured me of the ache. It didn’t. It only made it sound louder in the quiet.

“Enough,” I told myself. “Enough.”