Chapter 4
DECLAN
The emergency call comes through our pack link at two in the morning, sharp and urgent as a blade between the ribs.
I'm already awake, have been for hours, standing at my bedroom window and staring at the dark stretch of coastline where Clifftop House sits like a small beacon of warmth against the cold Atlantic night, the inheritance from her aunt that brought Eliza to Stormhaven.
The pull toward her hums beneath my skin, constant and maddening, making my wolf pace inside my chest.
Stone circle. Now. All of you.
Jax's mental voice carries an edge I rarely hear from my beta.
Technically, he doesn't have the authority to summon me—no beta can command their alpha—but I've given Jax more latitude than most alphas would.
He's too valuable, his tactical mind too sharp, to constrain with rigid hierarchy.
When he pushes that freedom to issue a direct summons at two in the morning, it means he's judged the situation serious enough to risk my displeasure. My stomach drops. This is about her.
Twenty minutes later, I stand in the center of the ancient stone circle that crowns the highest point of Stormhaven's northern cliffs.
The standing stones are older than recorded history, worn smooth by countless Atlantic storms, and they hold power that predates even our kind.
Moonlight paints everything in shades of silver and shadow.
The wind carries salt and seaweed and the electric charge of shifter tension.
My pack is already assembled. Five faces I've known my entire life, brothers in every way that matters, and they all look like they want to tear something apart.
Jax is pacing between the stones, barely containing the aggressive energy that radiates from him in waves.
He stops when he sees me, gold already bleeding into his eyes.
"She saw me." His voice is rough, hovering on the edge of a growl.
"Late night, around eleven. I was running the northern perimeter in wolf form, and she was out on the cliff path with her camera. "
Everything in me goes still. "How close?"
"Close enough that she got photos. Multiple shots." Jax's hands clench into fists. "I saw the flash. She got a good look, Declan. Long enough to know that wasn't any normal wolf."
The connection between Eliza and me flares hot and protective in my chest, warring with the cold dread of exposure. "Did she see your face? Could she identify you in human form?"
"Full wolf," Jax says. "But that's not the worst part. She's asking questions."
"What kind of questions?" My alpha instincts are screaming now, caught between protecting my mate and protecting my pack.
Callum steps forward from where he's been standing in shadow near one of the taller stones. Our pack's detective has that sharp, analytical look that means he's been working. "I've been keeping tabs on her movements since she arrived. Today she spent three hours talking to Martha Riley."
My breath hisses out. Martha is ninety-three, sharp as ever, knows the island and remembers everything.
"It gets worse." Brennan looks up from the laptop balanced on one of the flat stones, his fingers still flying across the keyboard even as he speaks.
"Eliza Warren. Twenty-nine years old. Investigative journalist based in London.
She's broken major stories—corporate corruption, environmental scandals, illegal wildlife trafficking.
She's won awards. Published in major outlets across the UK and Europe.
She's thorough, she's relentless, and once she gets a scent, she doesn't let go. "
"Of course she doesn't," I mutter, though part of me feels a surge of pride at my mate's accomplishments even as dread settles in my gut. "Because fate has a twisted sense of humor."
"There's more." Torin speaks for the first time, and the quality of his voice makes everyone go quiet.
Our seer stands at the eastern edge of the circle, his eyes distant and gleaming with that otherworldly light that appears when he's Reading something the rest of us can't see.
"Her arrival isn't random. It coincides exactly with the summoning ritual I've been tracking. "
My wolf snarls inside my chest. "What summoning ritual?"
"Someone's been working old magic along the coastline.
" Torin turns to face me, and the power radiating from him makes the standing stones hum in response.
"Blood magic, tied to the new moon cycle.
They're calling something. Something that doesn't belong in this world.
I felt the first stirrings the same night Eliza arrived in town. "
"You think she's involved?" The words taste like ash.
"I think she's a catalyst." Torin's expression is grave. "Whether she knows it or not. The timing is too precise. Her arrival, your mate recognition, the summoning—they're woven together. Connected."
"The ocean's disturbed too," Torin continues, his gaze going distant again. "I can feel it in the tides, in the deep magic. Something ancient is stirring in the waters. Whatever's being summoned, it's powerful enough to upset the natural order."
The weight of it hits me all at once. Our pack has protected the Isle of Skara and its surrounding waters for generations.
We're guardians, bound by ancient oaths to keep the balance between the human world and the supernatural forces that most people no longer believe in.
If something is being called here, something powerful enough to disturb the ocean's magic and trigger old rituals, we have a responsibility to stop it.
And my mate might be the key to it all.
"She needs to leave." Jax's voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. "Tonight. We scare her off, make her think Stormhaven is too dangerous or too boring or whatever it takes. She goes back to London, we handle the summoning situation, problem solved."
"She won't scare easily," Callum says quietly. "I've read her published work. She walked into cartel territory to expose wildlife trafficking. She went undercover in a corporate office for six months to break a corruption story. This woman doesn't run."
"Then we make sure she understands the consequences of staying." Jax stalks toward me, his wolf rising behind his eyes. "We've protected this territory for too long to let one human compromise everything. Mate or not."
Every alpha instinct I possess roars to life. I'm moving before I consciously decide to, crossing the space between us in two strides and getting in Jax's face. My eyes shift to wolf-gold, and I feel the power of my alpha status crackling in the air between us.
"You will not touch her." The words come out rough, barely human. "You will not threaten her. You will not go near her unless I give you explicit permission. Am I clear?"
Jax holds my gaze for three heartbeats, his wolf fighting the compulsion to submit to his alpha. Finally, he looks away, baring his throat in acknowledgment. "Clear."
I step back, fighting to regain control, but my wolf is still snarling, still ready to defend his mate against all threats. Even threats from within our own pack.
"She's mine." My voice is steadier now but no less absolute. "Fate or coincidence, she's mine. And I will protect her from anything that tries to harm her. Including all of you."
Silence falls over the circle. The wind picks up, whistling through the standing stones, carrying the crash of waves from the cliffs below.
"You're compromised." Jax's voice is quieter now but still edged with frustration.
"Look at yourself, Declan. Since she arrived, you've been standing at your window staring at Clifftop House instead of sleeping.
How are you supposed to make rational decisions about pack security when you can barely function without being near her? "
I can't argue with him. The connection to Eliza is affecting my judgment, clouding every decision I try to make. I can barely think past the need to see her, touch her, claim her properly. Every instinct I have screams at me to go to her right now, to mark her as mine before something else happens.
"I know." The admission costs me, but I force it out. "I know I'm compromised. What I feel for her is stronger than anything I've experienced. But that doesn't change the facts. She's my mate. I won't let anything happen to her."
"Even if protecting her means exposing the pack?" Brennan asks, his usual relaxed demeanor replaced with genuine concern.
I meet his eyes across the circle. "I'll find another way."
"There might not be another way," Torin says softly. "If she's truly connected to the summoning, if her presence here is part of something larger, then this is bigger than what binds you to her. Bigger than any of us."
Eamon finally speaks from where he stands near the southern stones, his healer's instincts making him the heart of our pack. "Then we help him figure it out. Together. That's what pack means."
The simple statement cuts through the tension. Eamon is right. We're pack. We face threats together, not divided.
"Here's what I propose." I look at each of them in turn.
"Give me time to approach her, talk to her, figure out what she knows and what she's really doing here.
Brennan, keep digging into her background—quietly.
Callum, maintain surveillance on her movements but stay distant.
Torin, continue tracking the summoning magic, try to identify the source and the target.
Jax, coordinate our perimeter patrols, make sure no one else gets spotted. "
"And if we determine she's working with whoever's doing the summoning?" Jax presses. "If she's bait, designed to distract you while something worse comes at us?"
The thought makes my wolf snarl, rejection of the idea visceral and immediate. But I can't dismiss it entirely. "Then we deal with it. But I won't condemn her without proof."
"How long?" Jax asks.
"Until I can assess the situation,” I reply, “and can figure out if she's a threat or a victim in all this."
Jax stares at me for a long moment, then nods slowly. "We can’t wait forever, Declan. If you can’t think clearly, we make a decision as a pack. All of us. Together. Agreed?"
I want to argue, want to assert my alpha authority and tell them Eliza is off-limits regardless of what they discover. But Jax is right. I'm compromised. And if I can't trust my own judgment, I have to trust theirs.
"Agreed." The word feels like surrender.
Eamon moves toward me, his healer's eyes searching my face. "You need to rest. You haven't been sleeping."
"I'm fine."
"You're not." Eamon's voice is gentle but firm. "The mate pull is exhausting you. You need to take care of yourself if you're going to handle this properly."
He's right, though I don't want to admit it. The constant ache of being separated from Eliza is wearing me down, making it harder to think, to plan, to lead.
"I'll try," I say, which is the best I can offer.
The pack begins to disperse, shifting into wolf form or heading down the cliff paths toward town. Brennan closes his laptop and pauses beside me.
"For what it's worth, I hope she's innocent." His voice is quiet. "Because I've never seen you like this, and I don't want to watch you have to choose."
He walks away before I can respond, leaving me alone in the stone circle with the wind and the moon and the constant, maddening pull toward Eliza.
I pull out my phone, staring at the dark screen. I could call her right now. Show up at Clifftop House. Use what binds us to draw her to me, make her want me as desperately as I want her. The connection would make it easy. She already feels the pull, even if she doesn't understand it.
But that feels wrong. Manipulative. Like I would be taking advantage of something she doesn't fully comprehend.
What I really want is to tell her everything.
To sit her down and explain about shifters and pack law and ancient oaths.
To tell her that fate has tied us together before we'd even met, and that every fiber of my being recognizes her as mine.
To beg her to stay, to give this impossible situation a chance, to trust me with her safety and her heart.
But I can't do that. Not yet. Not when her presence might be connected to a magical threat against everything I've sworn to protect.
So instead, I'll do what I've been doing for the past few days. I'll watch her from a distance. I'll fight against the bond that screams at me to claim her. I'll try to unravel the mystery of why she's really here.
And I'll hope that when the truth finally comes out, it won't destroy both of us.
I turn to leave the stone circle, and that's when I see it. A small piece of paper wedged between two of the standing stones, held in place by a smooth black rock. The paper wasn't there when we arrived. I would have noticed.
I approach slowly, every instinct on alert. The paper is folded once, my name written on the outside in handwriting I don't recognize. I open it.
The message is short. Four words that make ice flood my veins:
She’s found Maureen’s journals.
Below it is a symbol I've seen only once before, in my grandfather's journals. A mark that represents the old ones, the beings that existed before shifters, before humans, before the world settled into its current form.
I crumple the paper in my fist, my mind racing.
If this is true, and if Eliza already knows about shifters, then everything is more complicated than any of us imagined.
It could mean settling her aunt’s estate is just a ruse and she hasn't stumbled onto our secret by accident.
It could mean she came to Stormhaven deliberately searching for us.
The question is why.
And the more terrifying question is who left me the message, and what they want me to do with the information.
I look out over the cliffs toward the small lights of town, toward Clifftop House where my mate sleeps.
The bond pulses in my chest, pulling me toward her with an urgency that has nothing to do with the mysterious note.
Part of me wants to storm down there right now, demand answers.
The other part wants to believe she's just as caught off-guard by all this as I am.
I pocket the note and start down the cliff path. I need to see if my mate is a victim or a threat—and I'm not sure which answer terrifies me more.