Chapter 7
ELIZA
When Declan returns I haven't slept. How could I? My world has been turned inside out, reshaped into something impossible and terrifying and—I have to admit—exhilarating.
I've spent the hours since he left going through my aunt's journals with new eyes.
Every cryptic passage now makes sense. Every careful notation about moon phases and tide patterns and behavioral observations—it was all real.
She was documenting a hidden world that existed alongside the human one, and she did it for more than forty years.
The knock on my door is soft but firm. I know it's him before I open it. That pull I've been feeling since the moment we met vibrates stronger now, like a string connecting us that hums when he's near.
He's dressed in dark jeans and a henley, his hair still damp. He looks exhausted, but his wolf-gold eyes track every movement I make with predatory intensity.
"It's time," he says. "The pack leaders need to meet you properly."
Unease settles low in my belly. "Now?"
"The longer we wait, the worse it gets. They're already on edge." His eyes flash gold. "But you're my mate. That makes you pack. They will accept you, or they'll answer to me."
I grab my jacket, my phone, my journalist's notebook—old habits die hard. "What should I expect?"
"Hostility. Suspicion. Fear." He says it bluntly, not sugar-coating. "You're human. You know our secret. Some of them see you as a threat, no matter what I say about the mate bond."
"And if they decide I am a threat?"
His eyes flash gold. "They don't get to decide. I do. And I've already made my choice." A wry smile lifts the corners of his mouth. "Actually fate made the choice a long time ago."
The possessiveness in his voice sends warmth through me. I should probably examine what that means about me. Later.
The drive to the stone circle takes fifteen minutes along winding coastal roads. The scenery would be beautiful if I weren't so terrified.
Five men turn as one when they hear Declan's truck, and the predator focus in their collective gaze sends a shiver down my spine. They aren't entirely human. They're something else, something dangerous, and every instinct I have screams run.
I don't run. I get out of the truck and walk toward them with my chin up, even though my hands shake.
They are waiting among the standing stones. Declan introduces them to me. Jax, his second-in-command; Callum, the former detective; Brennan, the pack’s tech guru; Eamon, the pack’s healer; and Torin, the pack’s seer and magical practitioner—whatever the hell that means.
Declan moves to my side, close enough that our arms brush. "This is Eliza," he says, his voice carrying the weight of command. "My mate. You will treat her with the respect that position demands."
Jax steps forward—lean, aggressive energy radiating from every line of his body. His dark eyes are hostile. "She's human."
"She's mine," Declan counters. "That's all that matters."
"Is it?" Jax says, crossing his arms. "Because last time I checked humans who learn about us tend to cause problems. Big ones."
“Are you calling me a problem, Jax?” asks Callum, who seems to find something amusing in all of this.
"I'm not going to expose you," I say, finding my voice. "I'm a journalist, yes. But I'm also not an idiot. Publishing this story would either destroy my career or get me killed. Neither appeals to me."
Jax’s eyebrow lifts. "Smart. But being smart doesn't mean we can trust you."
"Then what would?" I meet his gaze, refusing to look away first. "What do I need to do to prove I'm not a threat?"
"Nothing,” Jax snorts. “There's nothing you can do. You're a liability by existing."
Declan growls, the sound inhuman enough to raise goosebumps on my arms. "Jax. Stand down."
"Why should I?" But Jax does step back, the submission reluctant. "We've protected this territory for generations. Kept the peace. And now you're asking us to trust some human journalist because you felt the mate pull? That's not leadership, Declan. That's hormones."
The men exchange glances, waiting to see how Declan responds.
"You're right," Declan says quietly. Dangerously. "The mate bond affects my judgment. But it doesn't change the facts. Eliza is here. She knows. And whether you like it or not, she's part of this now."
“Then let's make sure she understands what 'this' actually is." Brennan steps forward. He has an easier demeanor than Jax, but his eyes are just as sharp. "Sit down, Eliza. Time for the crash course in supernatural politics."
We settle on the flat stones scattered throughout the circle. I pull out my notebook, pen poised. Several of them tense at the sight.
"I'm not writing for publication," I explain. "This is how I process information. If it bothers you, I'll put it away."
"Let her write." This from Eamon, a man who's been silent until now—late thirties, with kind eyes and healer's hands. "She's going to remember it regardless. At least this way she can keep it organized."
I shoot him a grateful look and start taking notes as Brennan begins.
"Three rules." Brennan leans forward. "First—nothing we tell you leaves this circle without pack agreement. Second—you don't investigate us. No digging into our histories, no outside verification. Third—if you put any of us at risk, there are consequences. Severe ones. Clear?"
"Clear." I look up from my notebook. "But I need clarification on 'severe.'"
"Exile at best," Jax says flatly. "Death at worst. We protect our own, and we don't take chances with exposure."
I swallow hard but nod. "Fair enough. What do I need to know?"
They explain it all. The mate bond—an instinctive recognition between souls, rare but absolute when it happens.
Pack law—a hierarchy based on strength, loyalty, and the alpha's authority.
The territories scattered throughout the region, each protected by different shifter groups.
The fragile peace that keeps them all from tearing each other apart.
The threats. Old magic waking up. Tensions between packs. Humans encroaching on protected lands. And something else, something they keep dancing around but won't quite name.
"My aunt," I say, interrupting Brennan’s explanation of territorial boundaries. "What was her role in all this?"
They look at each other, silent communication passing between them.
Finally, Callum leans forward, his analytical eyes studying me carefully.
"Your aunt was a watcher," Callum says carefully.
"Not pack, not clan, but someone who existed in the space between human and shifter worlds.
She documented what she saw, yes, but she also did more than that.
She protected the borders. Kept curious humans from stumbling into dangerous situations. Warned us when hunters got too close."
"She saved lives," Eamon adds softly. "More than once. Shifter and human alike."
Pride swells in my chest, mixed with grief. "She never told me."
"She couldn't," Declan says. "The knowledge would have put you at risk. She kept you separate, safe, for a reason."
"Until now." Torin speaks for the first time—ethereal somehow, with distant eyes that seem to look through me rather than at me. "Until you came here and everything changed."
His tone sends a shiver down my spine. "What do you mean, everything changed?"
Torin stands, moving to the center of the circle. The standing stones hum in response to his presence. Power lives here—old power, the kind that predates civilization.
"Your aunt's death wasn't natural," he says bluntly. "We suspected it before. Now we're certain."
The words hit me like a physical blow. "What?"
"The official report said heart attack," Callum adds, his voice gentle but firm. "But the timing, the location, the circumstances—they all point to something else."
"Murder." Jax says what the others are skirting around. "Your aunt was murdered, Eliza. And it was part of something bigger."
The world tilts. My aunt. Murdered. The notebook slips from my fingers, forgotten. "Who? Why?"
"We don't know who yet," Brennan says. "But we know why. Or we think we do."
Torin kneels, traces something in the dirt at the center of the circle. A symbol I don't recognize—ancient, complex, reeking of power even to my human senses.
"This is a summoning mark," he explains. "Old magic. The kind that requires sacrifice—specific bloodlines, spilled at specific locations."
The implications crash over me. "You think my aunt was killed as part of a ritual?"
"We think she was killed at a sacred site," Torin corrects.
"The area around Clifftop House sits on a convergence point—a place where the barriers between worlds are thin.
Her blood, spilled there, would have power.
Especially given her role as watcher. She existed between worlds.
That makes her blood particularly potent for opening doors that should stay closed. "
I'm shaking now, grief and rage warring inside me. "What doors? What's being summoned?"
Torin’s expression goes dark. Haunted. When he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper.
"Something my grandfather died to keep from the world. Something that should never wake."
No one speaks. Even the wind holds its breath.
"What is it?" I press, needing answers, needing to understand why my aunt died. "What's down there?"
"We don't know exactly," Brennan admits.
"The records are fragmentary. Your aunt had pieces, Torin's grandfather had pieces, and there are others scattered throughout the old families.
But what we do know is that forty years ago, an ancient force tried to break through.
The old packs banded together to stop it.
The cost was..." He trails off, looking at Torin.