Every full moon, Damian Winchester chained himself inside Blackthorn Castle so he wouldn’t kill anyone.
Tonight, the chains were already losing.
Outside, a girl was running straight toward him.
---
“Take them out of my wing, Edmund.”
Damian’s voice came through the locked door, low and rough enough to make both servants freeze.
Edmund did not.
He stood inches from the door with a syringe in his hand. “One more dose, sir.”
“No.”
“It may buy you time.”
“It won’t buy enough.”
Inside the room, silver scraped over stone.
The beast under Damian’s skin stirred.
*Blood.*
Damian’s fingers locked around the chain.
Not Edmund.
Not the boys outside.
Edmund stepped closer. “You’ve never hurt me.”
Damian laughed once. It came out wrong.
“That is why you should leave.”
The door shook as a chain slammed against the wall.
One of the servants stumbled back.
Edmund turned his head just enough to speak. “Go.”
They ran.
Edmund stayed.
Of course he did.
Damian could hear the old man breathing through the door. He could hear his pulse, too steady for a man who should have been terrified.
The beast pressed harder.
*Break it.*
Damian clenched his jaw.
“If you open that door,” he said, each word dragged through his teeth, “I won’t know your name in time.”
For the first time that night, Edmund said nothing.
Then, quietly, “I’ll lock the wing.”
“Every door,” Damian said. “And if anyone gets inside tonight, don’t come after them.”
Edmund’s footsteps faded down the corridor.
Thunder rolled over Blackthorn.
For one breath, Damian heard only rain.
Then the beast went still.
A new scent cut through the fever.
Mud.
Fear.
A thin line of blood.
A girl.
Damian stopped breathing.
The beast did not reach for her like prey.
It recognized her.
*Right blood.*
Damian pulled against the chains until silver bit deep.
“No.”
---
Elise Langford had a broken branch, no shoes, and a man with a knife between her and the road.
“Veronica already took my money,” the buyer said. “There’s nowhere to go.”
Elise kept her back to the iron gate and her eyes on the knife.
Her stepmother’s name sat in her chest like a stone.
An hour ago, Veronica had smiled at her over dinner.
“There have been too many misunderstandings between us,” her stepmother had said. “I found something your mother left for you. I think it’s time you had it.”
Elise should have asked why it had to be tonight.
But Veronica had said mother.
So Elise got in the car.
For ten minutes, Veronica was almost kind. She asked about school. She said Elise looked tired. She sounded so close to sincere that Elise hated herself for wanting to believe it.
Then the road curved toward the old forest.
“Your little sister used to hate this road,” Veronica said, almost smiling. “All those Blackthorn stories. Missing servants. Locked towers. Windows lighting up after midnight.”
Elise had looked through the rain at the dark hill.
“It’s an empty castle.”
Veronica said softly, “You were never afraid of empty things.”
The car stopped.
“Go ahead,” Veronica said. “It should be just past the trees. I’ll park and follow you.”
Elise stepped out.
The doors locked behind her.
A stranger walked out of the woods.
Elise turned back, her stomach dropping. “Veronica. Open the door.”
Through the rain-streaked window, Veronica only looked at her.
“I’m sorry, Elise.”
She did not sound sorry.
“But you were never meant to keep that future.”
Then she drove away.
Now Elise was here, with a knife in front of her and Blackthorn at her back.