Page 17 of Wolf of the Storm
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 pulsesin 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.
CHAPTER 5
ELIZA
The Stormhaven Library smells like old paper and salt air, the scent seeping through windows that never quite close against the ocean wind. I've been here since opening, buried in the archives section with a stack of local history texts, newspaper microfiche, and a growing sense that I'm missing the obvious.
My aunt's journals sit in my bag, their cryptic passages eating at me. Old bloodlines. Moon-touched guardians. At first I thought Aunt Maureen was writing fiction, spinning stories. But the more time I spend in Stormhaven, the more those passages feel like field notes.
The wolf I photographed wasn't normal. Too large, too intelligent in the way it looked at me. And the town itself has an undercurrent I can't pin down. People watching me too carefully. Conversations that stop when I enter rooms. The sense that this picturesque fishing village is hiding more than just local gossip.
"Excuse me, dear, can I help you with something?"
I look up to find Mrs. Aoife Quinn, the head librarian, hovering near my table. She's perhaps seventy-five, with silverhair in a neat bun and sharp blue eyes that never seem to miss anything.
"I was wondering if you had anything in the archives by Maureen Gordon," I say. "She was my aunt. She lived here for over forty years, and I know she did local historical research."
Mrs. Quinn's expression changes—just for a moment. "Maureen's work. Yes, we have some of her papers. Let me check the catalog."
She disappears into the back room, and I return to the 1847 shipping manifest I've been examining. Three ships lost in one month, all in the same stretch of water near the cliffs. The official records blame storms, but the handwritten notes in the margins tell a different story. "Unnatural fog." "Crew reported singing." "Bodies never recovered."
I photograph the pages with my phone, then move to the next document—a collection of testimonies from a coroner's inquest in 1923. A fisherman was found on the rocks below the cliffs, his body bearing wounds the official report attributed to the fall. But the coroner's private notes, barely legible in faded ink, tell another story: "Lacerations inconsistent with impact. Pattern suggests large predator. No such animal documented in region."
Large predator. Like a wolf that shouldn't exist. Like the one that looked at me with human intelligence two nights ago.
"Here we are."
Mrs. Quinn returns with a slim archival box. Inside are letters, handwritten on yellowed paper, dated over a span of decades. I open the first one carefully, my heart racing as I recognize my aunt's precise script.
They walk among us—always have. The old bloodlines persist. The pack protects the bay, thebear guards the deep, and the shadows remember. This is not folklore. This is what I've seen.
My hands tremble as I reach for the next letter. It's addressed to someone named Eleanor, dated fifteen years ago.
You asked why I stay despite everything. Because someone must keep the record. Someone must remember what guards this place, even if no one else believes. They are not monsters, E. We are safer because of them, whether we know it or not.
"I'm sorry, dear, but I need to take those back."
I look up, startled. Mrs. Quinn's expression has changed, her friendly demeanor replaced with something harder.
"I'm not finished...”
"Those papers were misfiled." Her voice is firm. "They're part of Maureen's fiction collection, not historical archives. They shouldn't have been in this section."
"Fiction?" I stare at her. "These are letters. Personal correspondence. With dates, names...”
"Creative writing exercises." Mrs. Quinn is already gathering the letters, placing them back in the box with quick, efficient movements. "Maureen was working on a fantasy novel about the town. She liked to write in epistolary format. I should have remembered that before I pulled them for you."
