Midnight Visitor;

Elly shouted after her. "Can you explain anything that's happened since you arrived? The flowers. The coffee. The footprints. That thing in the medallion. If you can explain any of it, then go. But if you can't, check once. Just once. And if it's real, I will tell you everything."

Eva stopped with her hand on the doorframe.

She turned around. Pulled her blouse down. Fixed her eyes on Elly's face and waited.

Elly's expression changed.

Eva looked down.

On her chest, right over her heart, a circular mark sat between existing and not existing. Faint purple veins tracing a pattern beneath her skin. Barely visible. But there.

Pulsing like a heartbeat.

Eva stared at it.

"The seal," Elly said, her voice dropping to something between wonder and alarm. "The Alpha's seal. Eva. This is real."

Eva's voice came out flat. "How do we remove it."

"You can't remove it. This isn't a curse, it's a bond." Elly stepped closer. "You freed the ancient wolf's spirit from the medallion. He was trapped in wolf form for centuries, his mind clouded, barely conscious. Last night you freed him. He has an Alpha's mind again."

Eva looked up from the mark. "He made me coffee. If he only has consciousness, how is he brewing coffee with paws?"

Elly's excitement stopped cold.

She sat down. Then stood back up. Her eyes went wide. "The seal has awakened but it's not complete yet," she murmured. "Maybe he can shift for short periods."

Eva's mind had started moving on its own. And it had arrived somewhere she didn't like.

"Joe," she said.

Elly looked up.

"It's Joe. He left the flowers. He made the coffee. He's following me around trying to scare me."

"Eva, no. Joe is many things. He is not the Alpha's body. He's a beta. The Alpha is something else entirely, older, more powerful."

"I'm certain it's him," Eva said. "And if he tries anything tonight, he's not going to get a warm reception."

She meant it.

That afternoon she came home to find Joe leaning against his black pickup truck in front of the house, hands in his pockets, looking like he owned the entire mountain.

Eva walked past him toward the porch without slowing. "If you'd bothered to come inside," she said, voice flat, "maybe you could have made us coffee again. It's cold. I would have liked that." She said it with a smile that meant nothing good.

Joe moved.

He caught her by the waist and lifted her clean off the ground, spun her around, and set her on the hood of the truck like she weighed nothing.

Eva was so surprised she forgot to be angry for an entire second.

Then: "Get your hands off me, you mountain bear! What kind of move is that?"

Joe stepped in close, settling between her knees, close enough that his breath reached her face. He looked thoroughly amused.

"You can compare me to an animal," he said. "But a bear is too clumsy for me." He laughed, and it was the most infuriating sound she'd ever heard.

He reached up and tucked a strand of her ash-blonde hair behind her ear. His fingers were gentle. His eyes weren't.

"Make your choices carefully, Eva," he murmured. "Wrong decision, and you might regret it forever."

Eva headbutted him.

She'd meant it to hurt him. Instead it was like running forehead-first into a stone wall. Pain exploded through her skull. Tears shot to her eyes immediately.

"AHH! You brainless blockhead!"

Joe laughed. An actual, full, deeply satisfied laugh. "I warned you last time," he said. "I told you it would hurt. You did it anyway."

He was still grinning. She hated him.

Then something shifted in his face. Not mockery now. Something closer to genuine.

"You're a completely different kind of woman," he murmured, studying her. "Rare, Eva. So defiant, and so..." He shook his head slightly. "Enchanting."

"Move," she said. She pushed him. "Don't come to my door again. Don't come to my house. If you do, I will shoot you and claim self-defense."

She dropped off the hood, landed in the snow, and walked toward her door like a very small, very furious force of nature.

She could hear him laughing behind her all the way until she slammed the door.

The war had begun.

And she had no intention of surrendering to anyone.

By the time the sun went down, Eva had made a decision.

If something was coming, she wasn't going to wait for it sitting in a chair.

She'd learned enough from movies and books to have a working theory. She poured salt across every doorstep in an unbroken line. Did the same at every window. Then she arranged silver forks and knives along the window sills, points facing outward.

Finally she took her grandmother's dagger. It was heavier than she expected, cold, and the silver of it caught the firelight in a way that felt deliberate.

"If he's human," she muttered, gripping it, "this is a self-defense situation. If those wolves are real..." She looked at the blade. "Silver works. Hopefully."

She settled into the armchair with the dagger in her lap and her eyes on the door.

The fireplace crackled. The clock showed 11:50.

Ten minutes to midnight.

She waited.

The medallion began to heat against her chest. Not painful, but spreading, like warmth from a flame that was getting closer.

And then she heard it.

Inside her head.

A voice. Raspy. Deep. Masculine. And somehow, horribly familiar.

"Are these preparations for me, Rose's daughter?"

Eva was on her feet before she'd decided to move.

Her heart was slamming. She couldn't catch a breath. "Who are you?" she shouted at the empty room. "What do you want?"

She crossed to the window and looked out. Pitch black. No amber eyes. No silver eyes. Nothing in the snow.

No one was in the house. She was alone.

But the voice was so clear.

"It's me, my beloved mate," it said. Quiet, resonant, filling the inside of her skull. "Kael."

She stood there for a long moment.

Then she understood. The Alpha wasn't Joe.

She was about to meet him.

Eva waited, barely breathing, the dagger in her hand, eyes locked on the door. The clock was counting down toward midnight.

Then: a sound from outside.

"Don't come closer!" she shouted, hating that her voice shook. "I'll scream. I have a weapon."

A pause.

"It seems you don't want me in your house," the voice said. Deeper now, more present, as though it were just beyond the wall. "I can wait, Rose's daughter."

Eva stood there for a moment.

Then she walked to the window.

And she saw him.

Right in front of the porch, facing the window directly, stood a massive wolf. Thick fur shimmering between brown and red. This was the wolf from her first day on the mountain road. But tonight was different.

Its amber eyes glowed. Not with wildness. With consciousness, with meaning. It stood the way a person stands when they're choosing not to move.

And it was looking directly at her.

Eva swallowed. Her lungs had stopped working properly.

She gathered herself and spoke through the glass. "Are you the one speaking?"

The wolf didn't look away.

"Yes, my love," the voice came from somewhere deep inside her. "I am Kael."

Eva's knees went soft. A wolf was standing at her door. A wolf was talking to her from inside her own mind.

"God," she breathed. "I'm losing my mind."

But she was already moving toward the door. She was now certain that the Alpha wasn’t Joe!

And now, she was about to meet him...