Chapter 2
TWO
FENRIR
SIX MONTHS AGO
I’m pretty sure a Hellhound has never set foot inside Devall Mansion, yet here I am, standing in the foyer, palms sweatier than they were in the desert during an eight-mile ruck with a twenty-five-kilo pack, plus water, rifle, and helmet.
The mansion lives up to its name: pale marble flooring, a glistening chandelier, and a split staircase that looks like a musical set—minus the sequinned dancers flanking the steps. I feel as out of place as a homeless man in the Ritz.
I’m greeted—if you can call it that—by an airbrushed woman in a dress suit.
She stares at me, clearly certain it isn’t the thirty-first of October, until I tell her I’ve been summoned by Mr Devall.
Only then does she cautiously usher me to follow her, turning as soon as she can to avoid looking at my face.
She knows the same thing I do: I don’t belong here.
Callan, head of the Hellhounds, had been as shocked as I was when the message came through that Devall wanted to see me in his home. I didn’t waste any time thinking it over; he’s not a man you keep waiting.
Sharp suit, dark hair speckled with silver, Devall’s still handsome even in his late sixties. Combined with a fierce expression that could make a man lose control of his bowels, he’s a man who can make any sceptic believe in the devil.
The woman leads me out of the foyer and down a long corridor, her ponytail swinging as she walks.
No conversation. No small talk. She’s probably wondering—like I am—what the hell I’m doing here.
She’ll know about the Hellhounds—everyone in Rothkor does.
But I’d bet good money she’s never come face to face with one, especially not a face as brutal as mine.
We take a right, and I’m met with the scent of chlorine and humidity that swathes my face in a sickly heat. There’s a glass wall to my right, and on the other side, the rippling of dark blue water. The pool room. Because every mansion has an indoor pool, right?
At the end of the corridor, Barrett Devall stands with a group of four men.
Three of them look pale and nervous, like they’d rather be anywhere else.
The fourth is Markus Flint, who’s been with the Devall family for years.
He started as a bodyguard before working his way up the ranks to head of security.
His greying hair and worry lines speak to his loyalty as much as his age.
Markus eyes me cautiously as the woman announces my arrival.
“Ah, Fenrir Therion,” Devall says, seemingly unaffected by my appearance—unlike the three other men, whose eyes trace the scarring down the side of my face and neck, probably wondering how far down my body my scars travel.
I see it written all over their faces: the inner dilemma, the silent tug-of-war. They know they shouldn’t stare, should avert their gaze, but they can’t.
I’m the car crash at the side of the road.
“I see you got my message.” He cocks his head, but there’s no handshake, no pat on the back, which I can live with.
“Yes, sir.” I nod, placing my hands behind my back, feeling scruffy in my dark combats and black T-shirt, especially next to his immaculate suit, which probably cost more money than I’ll ever make.
Devall turns back to Markus. “We’re done here,” he says, ever the gentleman, patting Markus on the back, who nods. “Take the new recruits to the systems room. Get them acquainted with the tech and then report back to me in—” He flashes a gaudy watch. “—an hour.”
“Of course, sir,” Markus replies before Devall stops him with the palm of his hand on his chest, then signals with a nod for him to step aside. The pair form a huddle as Devall speaks quietly into Markus’s ear, divulging something that clearly isn’t for the likes of us, leaving me with the newbies.
I’m starting to feel the weight of the shifting glances from the recruits—presumably the newest additions to Devall’s ever-expanding security team. This man has always had enemies. He always will. You don’t run a city with such a ruthless regime like his without stepping on a few toes.
The Castro family remains Devall’s biggest thorn.
Headed up by brothers Vincent and Robert, they’ve been trying to move into Devall territory, aiming to dominate the nightclub scene.
Tensions have been rising since Tyrone Miller, one of Castro’s men, was found dead last week in a multi-storey car park with a bullet between his eyes.
Suspicions wouldn’t have been raised if the guy hadn’t been brokering a new alliance with a foreign businessman—one with money and resources far beyond the realms of Devall’s illegally gotten gains. Naturally, all fingers pointed to a Hellhound hit.
But every action has a repercussion. A gang war is brewing.
So, yeah, it makes sense that Devall’s hiring more security.
To unburden myself from the weighty glares, I glance through the glass wall of the pool room.
Sunlight blares through the external window, casting diamonds across the surface of the water. The pool glistens with an almost surreal tranquillity—until I register the mass of black hair, arms, and legs sprawled out from the faceless body floating at its centre.
There’s a beat.
A fleeting moment where I’m caught in the serenity—the fluidity of the water—almost like the stopping of time.
Until I come to my senses.
Like the trained soldier I am, I move—fast and efficient.
I crash through the door to the pool room and dive in, instinct over memory. It’s nothing like the cold lakes from army survival training. Back then, we were drilled to never jump in unless absolutely necessary. Always assess. Always use a tool. Rescue from a safe distance.
But there’s nothing here to help me, and no time to waste.
I don’t even notice there’s an entourage behind me, Markus abandoning the recruits in the corridor to follow me, until I’ve hauled the body from the water and dragged her onto the side of the pool.
“What the hell?” Devall’s voice thunders over my shoulder.
From the coughing and spluttering, it’s clear I don’t have a dead body on my hands, so there’s no need for CPR. Still, I hold her upright, resting her body against my knees, allowing her to catch her breath.
An anchor drops in my stomach as I realise who I’ve just pulled out of the pool: Hayami Devall, Barrett’s only child and heir to his empire.
Hayami is a Japanese name, presumably chosen by her mother, Junko, Devall’s third wife.
It means “rare beauty.” But how could they have possibly known?
How does anyone see the beauty of a woman in a babe in arms?
But I see it now. Even in her bedraggled state, her beauty seeps from her pores.
Her skin is drenched, but it doesn’t dull the pale glow, the luminosity that seems to radiate from her.
And yet there’s something else.
An eerie darkness clings to her, but doesn’t quite touch. It hovers over the surface of her skin like a shadow waiting for permission. Waiting to take hold.
I should be shocked by this, but I’m not.
It’s something I’ve been able to see for the past fourteen years.
I’ve never told anyone. How could I? Where would I even begin?
Because this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this shadow.
I’ve seen it more times than I can count—on strangers in the street, fellow soldiers in my squad, even on myself.
I knew what it was the first time I glimpsed it in the mirror.
It was months after the incident, when I finally dared to look—really look—at the reflection of my new face.
The shadow shimmered around my periphery, as if it wanted to introduce itself.
As if it knew the time wasn’t quite right… but almost.
There’s no doubt what that dark mark is: the shadow of death. The whisper of its breath.
It only haunts people like me, who have been on the brink of dying and somehow survived. We’re now coated in this darkness, stalked by its obscurity, reminded of where we would be had fate not intervened.
This is why I’m under no illusion as to what Hayami was trying to do, where she was about to be taken.
Because I’ve been there myself and lived to tell the tale.
And now, so will she.
Clad in a tiny swimsuit, she feels impossibly delicate in my roughened hands—like porcelain. I almost drop her, overcome by the fear that I shouldn’t be touching something so beautiful, so exquisite.
“Willa, we need you in the pool room, now,” Markus speaks into his cuff, then adjusts the earpiece that I imagine is permanently attached.
Hayami coughs up some more water. Instinctively, I rub her back, then stop when I remember who she is, where I am, and who’s watching. It’s when the coughing ceases and she clears the water from her eyes that she finally looks at me.
Beautiful. Fucking beautiful, but I don’t have time to appreciate them as her eyes widen, her pupils dilate, and her mouth drops open. Her reaction tells me exactly what she’s thinking.
Horror. Revulsion. Fear.
Same old, same old.
She claws her way from my grasp, and I don’t blame her.
“What the fuck?” she splutters.
“Princess.” Barrett nears, Markus joining him but keeping a respectable distance. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head as Markus grabs a towel from the lounger and tosses it to her. “I was just floating in the water, and then this goddamn monster pulled me out and nearly drowned me.”
Six pairs of eyes regard me as Hayami wraps the towel around her shoulders.
“She was facedown in the water. I thought….” I don’t finish because there’s no point. They all know what I thought, what anyone would think if they saw a person like that.
“You were floating on your front?” the gang lord asks Hayami.
“Yes,” she replies. “I always float this way. It’s relaxing—until some fucking ogre drags me from the water. Who the hell even is this beast?”
“It’s not important, my princess.” He dismisses her question.
I am not important.
“Yeah, well, he needs firing, right now.”