Chapter 8: The Locked Room

Conrad drove the three hours in just under two and a half.

He turned the lights off a mile from the Hartwell house and let the car roll the last stretch down the service lane.

My father's car was already in the drive, with the engine ticking.

Every window on the ground floor was lit.

"They're awake," I said.

"They're waiting for us to come in the front."

"Then we don't."

The cellar door at the back of the house had a bad latch.

I had been using it to sneak out since I was thirteen.

I pushed it with my shoulder in the right spot, and it swung open on the smell of coal and old apples.

Conrad followed me down the steps with a hand on my back, and he left it there longer than he needed to.

Neither of us mentioned it.

At the top of the cellar stairs, the kitchen was empty.

The house was too quiet.

I led him through the back pantry and along the servants' passage to the foot of the back stairs.

Boots were coming down the hall above us.

I grabbed his wrist and pulled him sideways into the linen cupboard under the stairs.

It was a narrow closet, built for towels.

I pulled the door shut, and the dark closed over us.

He was a head taller than me and twice as wide.

Every inch of me touched some inch of him.

My back was flat against the shelves, his chest was against my front, and one of his hands braced on the wall beside my head.

Two wolves walked by outside, so close that I could hear them breathing.

"She's not in the house," said one.

"The Alpha says she's coming."

"How would she come?"

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