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.
“You’re mine now,” the buyer said. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
Elise lifted the branch and pushed back against the gate.
“You paid to be a rich woman’s dog. Proud of that?”
The gate did not move.
His smile twitched. “Don’t waste your time. It won’t open. Just drop the stick.”
“Come get it yourself.”
The buyer did not move.
Elise looked at his boots in the mud, then back at his face.
“Why are you standing so far away?”
His jaw tightened.
Elise’s eyes narrowed. “Oh. I see. You’re scared.”
His face flushed. “You think you’re the smart one? Go on. Keep trying to open that door. You have no idea what you’re walking into.”
Elise’s fingers caught on a seam beneath the ivy.
Her pulse jumped.
The gate was stuck.
Not locked.
She kept her face still.
“Then enlighten me.”
“That’s Blackthorn.” His voice dropped. “They say the last one they found coming down that hill kept screaming not to take him back.”
Elise’s fingers tightened on the hidden seam.
The buyer glanced toward the dark castle.
“Said the thing inside had a man’s face.”
A chain scraped somewhere beyond the iron.
The buyer went pale.
Elise heard it too.
Her hand stayed on the seam.
The buyer lifted the knife. “You come with me, maybe you hate tomorrow. You go in there, you don’t get tomorrow.”
Elise looked at the knife.
Then at the castle.
“Maybe you’re right,” she whispered.
“There you go,” the buyer said, his smile coming back. “Finally thinking.”
Elise let her hand fall from the gate.
The buyer’s eyes followed it.
That was all she needed.
Elise yanked the gate inward and twisted through the gap.
“Don’t think you can shut me out, you stupid bitch!”
The buyer shoved one hand through the bars.
Elise slammed the gate with everything she had.
His scream ripped through the rain.
Then a howl rose from inside the castle.
Low.
Savage.
Too close.
The buyer went silent.
When Elise looked through the bars, he was already backing into the trees.
Behind her, Blackthorn Castle stood in the heavy rain.
---
The castle doors opened before Elise touched them.
Warmth spilled out, soft and golden against the storm.
For one stupid second, she thought the castle might be safer than the man outside.
Then she saw the blood.
A dark smear crossed the marble near the stairs, half wiped away.
Elise stopped breathing.
Somewhere above her, a chain scraped once.
The sound moved through the hall and disappeared into the walls.
Then came a low breath.
Not hers.
Not human.
Elise backed up.
At the far end of the hall, something shifted in the dark.
A man stepped into the edge of the moonlight.
Elise had expected claws. Fur. A twisted face to match the sound in the walls.
Instead, the thing in front of her looked like a ruined prince.
Barefoot, bare-chested, and bleeding where silver had bitten into his skin.
A broken chain hung from one wrist.
His head was lowered, like he was fighting something inside himself.
A man barely holding the monster back.
Then he looked up.
Green eyes. Wrong green. Beautiful and not human.
Elise’s heart missed one hard beat.
The low sound in the walls stopped.
He saw her.
His jaw tightened.
For one second, he looked away, and the chain on his wrist pulled taut, like stopping himself cost him something.
Then his voice came out rough from the dark.
“Who let you into my castle?”