Chapter 11: What the Vault Remembers

Tiernan fell asleep a little before dawn, for the first time since I'd met him.

He slept on his stomach with one arm over my waist, and I lay awake and listened to the house.

I waited until his breathing went deep, then slid out from under his arm.

I dressed in the dark.

My shoulder throbbed where he had bitten me, and under the ache a thin bright thread tugged toward the bed.

I ignored it and went downstairs.

The cellar door was at the end of the east hall, and two members of the pack stood in front of it.

They were both large, and both awake.

I walked straight at them, because I had never learned to do anything else.

One of them looked at my shoulder, where my collar had slipped.

His eyes went wide, and he stepped aside.

"Luna," he said, and lowered his head.

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said, "Thanks," and went down the stairs.

At the bottom was a steel door with a keypad and a magnetic lock.

I studied the lock for a minute.

Then I studied the wall beside it, where a small white box sat next to a fire alarm.

It was a thermostat.

Tiernan's vault was air-gapped, which meant it had no network connection.

It also had temperature control, and the thermostat was wired to the same building system as everything else in the pack house.

I pulled out my flip phone and the cable I keep in my coat, and I went in through the heating.

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