Chapter 14 - Layla
The basement was a mess of light and shadow, paper and frustration.
Layla sat at her desk, shoulders tight, hair half-tied and half-fallen, the faint light of the candles stuttering across the walls.
The place looked like the inside of her head, chaotic, overrun, refusing to settle.
Burnt matches and half-melted wax crusted the edges of the desk.
The tang of old smoke lingered, a ghost of all the spells she’d tried and failed to make sense of the dreams.
Now, she wasn’t even bothering with magic.
She was sketching. Again.
The rough paper was crowded with lines, bold arcs and rippling curves, jagged slashes, and half-erased shading.
Aurora Peak, summit of the tallest mountain in the Chilkat range, loomed across the center of the page, drawn from memory, its slopes etched in strokes of green-black ink.
Above it, she’d captured the undulation of the northern lights as best she could remember: seven long waves, then two shorter flickers, the rhythm burned into her brain.
The candle beside her hissed and spat. She ignored it, instead bending closer, adding a fine line along the crest of the wave, then another, smaller, sharper, almost like a pulse. She chewed absently at the end of the pen as she worked, her eyes stinging from lack of sleep.
It was the same vision every night, unchanging, relentless. A flare of the northern lights above her as she knelt in the snow of Aurora Peak.
Around her, the remnants of her earlier attempts crowded the floor, papers covered in furious, cramped handwriting, small vials of dried herbs, burnt-out candles leaning drunkenly in their holders.
The scent of rosemary and salt clung to everything, mingling with the faint metallic chill of the sea air seeping through the stone walls.
It had been a week since the fight. A week since Dominic had left her standing at the window, too proud to say sorry, too tired to try again.
She pressed her thumb into the paper so hard it left a dent.
He’d treated her like a child. Both him and her brother. Like she couldn’t tell the difference between fantasy and truth.
Her mouth twisted.
If they wanted to think her foolish, fine. Let them drown in their own logic. She would prove herself right. She’d climb the mountain, find the lights, find whatever it was that haunted her sleep until she couldn’t tell where the dreams ended and waking began.
She reached for the graphite pencil this time, dragging a smudge of grey through the streak of green. The arc looked too sharp. Wrong again. She flipped to a new page, her movements brisk and controlled.
Her fingertips were blackened with ink. A thin cut traced her palm where a broken nib had bitten her hours ago. It still throbbed, but she ignored it.
“It twists all up,” she whispered, sketching the motion again. “Like water down a drain. Green into blue.”
She was getting closer, the shapes on the page more and more resembling the vision that played on the back of her eyelids every time she closed her eyes.
She didn’t know why she bothered. She could picture it always, as if constantly in some sort of waking dream.
But perhaps getting it down on the page would finally get it out of her head.
Layla leaned back in her chair and stared at the page, exhaustion buzzing in her skull. The candles were burning low now, their light uneven, their shadows trembling. She rubbed her temples, smearing ink across her cheek.
The room was too quiet. It buzzed almost, filling her ears.
“I’m not crazy,” she said aloud, just to hear a sound.
Her voice came back to her, small and steady.
She exhaled, long and shaky. She wanted to throw something, her pencil, the lamp, the entire desk, anything to relieve the pressure building under her skin.
Instead, she picked up another sheet of paper.
Drew again. The lines came more erratic this time, the waves twisting into spirals, the spirals into something like an eye.
She stared down at it for a long moment, throat tight. Then she laughed, low and bitter.
“Brilliant. Perfectly sane, drawing eyes in the dark.”
She shoved the paper aside, accidentally knocking over a candle. It rolled against the stone, flame guttering, then steadied. The smell of wax filled the air.
Dominic’s voice still echoed in her head, the way he’d said her name, low and careful, as if afraid she’d break. He’d thought she was fragile, unpredictable, too wrapped up in things she didn’t understand.
“To hell with him,” she murmured, marking another line on the paper with sudden force. The pencil tip snapped.
She froze, staring at the broken graphite. The sound had been sharp in the silence, sharp enough that for a moment, she thought it hadn’t come from her hand at all.
Then, from above, came another sound.
A faint creak.
Layla stilled.
The ceiling was thick wood, old and prone to settling, but this was different, longer, deliberate. Someone moving.
“Please just be the wind,” she whispered.
The floorboards creaked. A weight paused at the top of the basement steps.
Layla’s mouth went dry. Maddie wasn’t here. When the hybrid attack happened, Layla had gently suggested she go visit some college friends in California. She wasn’t due back for another two weeks. The shop was closed, locked up tight.
And whoever it was moved far too lightly to be a human.
She swallowed. If it were Dominic, she was as good as dead. If it were Theodore, probably the same. If it were a guard on an errand, she could lie badly and buy herself a few hours to try and escape before someone told the Alpha his Luna hoarded outlawed books and practiced witchcraft.
The latch on the basement door lifted without complaint, and the door opened onto the narrow stairs. No light shone down. She looked around, desperate for somewhere to run, somewhere to hide, but there was nowhere. She was trapped.
A figure took the first step, and then the second, deliberate and silent.
Julian.
He descended slowly, carefully, candles throwing his face into shadow.
He did not speak. Instead, his gaze moved over the table, the cords, the shelves of books, the pots of herbs.
He looked over Layla last, ink on her fingers, ash on her hem, chalk smudged on her cheek.
The basement felt smaller with him in it, the air pulled taut, the stone listening harder.
She had never been more afraid.
“Julian,” she said, and hated the way his name left her mouth like a prayer and a warning at once.
He stopped at the lowest step and, with the faintest incline of his head, acknowledged the room, the books, the truth already crowding the space between them.
“Good evening, Layla,” he said, voice quiet as a blade’s shadow, “busy night?”
Julian didn’t move closer. He didn’t need to. The dim light from the candles suddenly seemed bright as the sun, every corner of the basement suddenly too visible. A perfect crime scene.
Layla’s throat was dry, but she forced herself to speak. “It’s late. If you’re looking for a report, I—”
“I’m not.”
The interruption was soft, polite, but final.
Julian’s voice had that careful precision of a man who never wasted a word.
He crossed the stone floor, his boots making almost no sound.
When he reached the table, he stopped, resting one hand lightly against its edge, his gloved fingers brushing the chalk line she had drawn earlier.
His expression was unreadable, though the faint crease between his brows told her he was already cataloguing everything, the sigils, the book titles, the scent of burnt herbs in the air.
“Do you often work at this hour?” he asked.
Her mouth opened and closed. “Sometimes,” she managed, “the quiet helps.”
Julian glanced toward the scattered books. “You read dangerous things to pass the time.”
Layla’s pulse jumped. She followed his gaze and immediately wished she hadn’t; the topmost book was open to the page about ley lines, old witch sigils drawn clear as moonlight across the parchment. She moved to shut it, but his hand came down lightly on the cover, stopping her.
“Leave it,” he said. His tone wasn’t cruel, only indifferent. He didn’t look at her as he turned the page, scanning it with the focus of a man studying a weapon, “Where did you find this?”
“I—” She hesitated, knowing that whatever she said next would matter. “It was here when I took over the bookshop. Some of the older volumes weren’t catalogued.”
“Mm.” His eyes lifted, sharp, pale gray in the glow of the candles. “And you decided to read them. Out of curiosity?”
Layla swallowed. They’d had this conversation before. She wondered if he’d known then, if he’d suspected. “Knowledge isn’t a crime.”
“It depends on the kind of knowledge,” Julian said. His voice was quiet enough to make her heart skip. “Especially when that knowledge defines what you are.”
He looked at her, and she had the sudden, awful certainty that he already knew. That he wasn’t here to discover anything.
“I’m not—” she began.
“Don’t lie to me.”
The words landed like the quiet click of a trap closing.
Layla froze.
Julian didn’t raise his voice, didn’t move, but the air in the room shifted. He wasn’t angry; he didn’t need to be. He was the kind of male who could whisper, and death would follow on swift wings.
“Do you know why I’m here?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Because I pay attention,” he said, “and because I’ve seen things like this before.” He lifted one of the notebooks she’d been writing in, her list of dreams, the drawings of the aurora, the half-finished runes. He read them in silence, lips moving faintly as if translating a language only he knew.
When he finally spoke, his voice was calm again. “What do you want with the northern lights?”
Her breath caught. “How—”
“As I said,” he replied, cutting her off gently, “I’ve seen things like this before. Was it a vision you had? Of the northern lights over Aurora Peak?”
She felt dizzy, her fingers gripping the edge of the table to steady herself.
Julian looked up from the notebook. “Tell me, Layla. When you dream, do you wake with your mating mark hurting?”
Her hand twitched instinctively toward her palm before she could stop it.
That was all the answer he needed.
He stepped closer, the space between them shrinking until she could smell the faint traces of cedar and iron that clung to him. “I have read about such things,” he said softly. “Rare, but not impossible. There are stories, witches bound to wolves. Power shared, amplified. Dangerous.”
The word hung in the air.
Layla’s voice trembled. “I’m not a witch.”
Julian’s gaze didn’t waver. “If not a witch, then what?”
“I—” Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. There was no lie she could tell that would sound convincing now.
He studied her face, the flicker of her pupils, the tremor of her breath. “You don’t need to be afraid of me,” he said after a moment. “If I wanted to expose you, I already would have.”
Layla didn’t believe that for a second. “Then why are you here?”
“Because I want to understand what you are to him,” Julian said. “I wasn’t raised in the Volkhov Pack. I grew up an ocean away. Different priorities. Different practices. Yest' veshchi, ot kotorykh dazhe ya ne mogu ubezhat.”
Layla swallowed. So he was Russian.
Without pausing, he seamlessly switched back to English, blinking away whatever ghost had just touched him. “I want to understand what you might be to the pack.”
She stared at him, caught between fear and disbelief. “You think this”—she gestured at the books, the symbols, the chalk dust clinging to her hands—“could ever help anyone? If Dominic finds out, he’ll—"
“Kill you?” Julian asked mildly. “Exile you? Perhaps. Or perhaps he’ll decide Lunarion wouldn’t have chosen someone unworthy for him. That you’ve got a part to play in all this. Either way, your secret can’t survive long. Not as the Luna. Not as the Alpha’s mate.”
Layla’s stomach turned cold.
Julian’s expression softened slightly, though the effect was somehow worse than when he’d looked at her like she was some sort of weapon. “You’re not the first to be afraid of what you are,” he said, “but fear makes poor cover. You’d do better with allies.”
“Are you offering?” she asked, the words escaping before she could stop them.
A corner of his mouth twitched. “That depends on what you’re offering in return.”
Her voice cracked. “I don’t have anything.”
“Oh, I think you do.” He gestured to her notes. “Dreams. Visions. Insight. I’ve seen enough of this world to know the divine rarely wastes effort. If it’s showing you something, it’s for a reason.”
Layla blinked at him. “You really do believe in all this, don’t you?”
Julian’s gaze softened. “I have more reason than most.”
The weight of his words pressed against her chest until she could barely breathe.
“Julian,” she whispered, “please. Don’t tell him.”
He looked at her for a long time, the silence stretching until the faint hiss of the sea outside was the only sound in the room.
Finally, he said, “That depends on you.”
Layla’s pulse hammered. “What do you want?”
“I want you to tell me everything you see,” he said. “Every vision. Every dream. If something changes, I hear it first. I can…suggest plans to the Alpha accordingly. In exchange, I keep your secret.”
The way he said it made her skin crawl.
“You’re using me,” she said quietly.
Julian smiled, just enough to show that she wasn’t wrong. “I’m protecting the pack. If that protection happens to require…information, then yes. I’ll use it. I’ll use you.”
He stepped back, giving her room to breathe. “But understand this, Layla: if you lie to me again, I’ll know. And I won’t be as forgiving twice.”
Her vision blurred, the candlelight seemed too bright, the air too thin.
Julian turned and started toward the stairs, pausing halfway up. “Think carefully,” he said. “Witchcraft is treason in these parts. But prophecy? A divine gift from Lunarion? The pack may just believe that. Oh, and Layla?”
“Yes?” she squeaked, flinching slightly at the ice in his voice.
“Don’t do anything stupid. The forests aren’t safe at the moment. If you had been planning on venturing up to Aurora Peak, I’d forget those plans. You don’t need to prove yourself to me. And if you do insist on going, at least let me go with you. Understood?”
“Understood,” she said, hands trembling.
He fixed her with a hard look. “I mean it, Layla. Warn me first.”
“I’ll warn you,” she said, her voice small. “I won’t go alone. I promise.”
He nodded, seemingly satisfied. Then he climbed the rest of the steps and was gone, the door closing softly behind him.
Layla stood in the quiet that followed, her pulse still pounding in her ears. Her hand shook as she picked up the notebook again.
Her sketches stared back at her, the progression of an undulation, the storyboard clear.
She exhaled hard enough that a nearby candle extinguished.